Therefore, I’ve outlined why I believe it’s important that we commit to provide free childcare for all children at three and four years old, as a means of tackling this inequality that I have referred to. This debate is timely because just this morning we started to scrutinise the childcare funding Bill that this Government has brought forward, and that policy, brought forward by Government, limits free childcare to working families. One could argue—and the Government does argue—that that brings benefits to them, although there are questions, in my mind and in other people’s minds, as to the evidence to support that, but in my view it also increases the risk that those children from the most disadvantaged families, the unemployed families, will be left even further behind. Plaid Cymru wants to break that vicious circle of disadvantage and low attainment.

The children’s commissioner, Save the Children and others share Plaid Cymru’s view that excluding children from non-working families from this childcare offer will expand the education gap rather than narrow it. Some of the evidence that we’ve heard is damning. The children’s commissioner said, for example: