Clause 35 - Applications for registration: early years childminders
Childcare Bill
9:00 am
Annette Brooke (Shadow Minister, Education & Skills; Mid Dorset and North Poole, Liberal Democrat)
I support amendment No. 276. I do not feel inclined to go into a long debate about “may” and “must”, and I am sure that no one else would want me to. I will not because I have done it so many times in relation to local plans and goodness knows what. The amendment refers to clause 62, which is quite a way on in the Bill. Subsection (6) states:
“The prescribed requirements for registration may included requirements relating to—
(a)the applicant
(b)the premises on which the childcare is being (or is to be) provided”,
and so on. It is vital that that provision should say “must” rather than “may”. I leave that for the Minister to contemplate. If we are seriously talking about a system of registration and regulation to improve quality, we should not be rather casual—that is implied by the word “may”—about the sort of information that has to be lodged in the register.