It is fair to say that a number of us shared some of Llyr’s concerns about the childcare offer as it’s currently shaped. I’ll expand on some of those areas a little later. However, on balance, we didn’t feel that these concerns warranted the committee recommending the Bill should fall at this stage. We came to this conclusion based on our belief that the Bill is necessary to enable data held by UK Government departments, including HMRC, to be used to assess eligibility for the offer. Evidence presented to us indicated overwhelming support for this approach.

This support was based on one main argument. Everyone recognised the childcare offer could be rolled out nationally by asking parents to prove their eligibility by providing relevant paperwork to local authorities. However, there was a broad consensus, based on experience in the current pilot areas, that this has been burdensome for parents, providers and local government alike. Many also argued that roll-out on the basis of manual checks could increase the potential for inconsistency and abuse of the system.

So, it’s on that basis that the majority of our committee supported the general principles of this Bill. Nevertheless, we identified a number of areas where we believe improvements should be made. This afternoon, I’ll outline some of the steps we think the Minister should take to improve the Bill. 

Before I do that, I should be clear that we made our recommendations based on the firm belief that it is not possible to separate the Bill’s provisions from the detail of the childcare offer itself. This Bill provides broad powers to Welsh Ministers to make secondary legislation to specify the detail of their childcare offer. While we may not doubt the stated intentions of this Government, it is incumbent on us to remember that if this Bill is passed, the powers are there for any future Government to do with them as they see fit. It is our responsibility to make sure that we’re clear about what we’re legislating to allow, and whether there's sufficient detail on the face of the Bill to ensure that the Assembly’s intentions are clearly defined in the legislation it passes.

Moving now to the detail of our recommendations, first of all, we're keen to ensure that the lessons learned from the evaluation of the current pilot offer inform this legislation. While we recognise that achieving national roll-out involving the data held by UK departments requires the Assembly to move with pace to legislate, we remain disappointed that the evaluation of the pilot offer was not completed before this legislation was brought forward. We are concerned that the main reason cited by stakeholders for leaving much of the detail underpinning the Bill’s provisions to regulations was the need to remain flexible while we await the results of the evaluation. Both the Minister and stakeholders have attached significant weight to the learning that will emerge from it.

In light of this, we believe the evaluation’s findings should be available for our consideration before the start of Stage 3. This is to afford sufficient opportunity for all Members to propose and consider any amendments to the Bill that may be required as a consequence of the evaluation. We welcome the Minister’s indication in his written response and his assurances today that efforts will be made to share the findings before Stage 3 begins.

Another of our key recommendations relates to whether the Bill’s provisions should be restricted to the children of working parents only. In the evidence we received, some significant concerns were expressed that restricting the Bill to this group only could increase inequality between the children of non-working and working parents, particularly in relation to the school readiness gap and educational attainment.

To mitigate the impact on some of Wales’s poorest families, we recommended the Minister extend the Bill’s provisions beyond working parents, particularly to those undertaking education and training linked to securing employment.

We are disappointed that the Minister has not accepted this recommendation. We recognise that other programmes exist to support non-working parents, including Parents Childcare and Employability and Flying Start, and welcome the Minister’s commitment to making clear what support is available and to whom. However, we remain concerned that such programmes do not currently reach all who need support. After all, our recent inquiry into Flying Start showed the majority of children living in poverty fall outside defined Flying Start areas. I urge the Minister to reconsider this recommendation.

During the course of our scrutiny we learned that important matters such as what funded childcare an eligible child will be able to receive, where the childcare will be provided, by whom it will be delivered, and at what hourly rate, will be specified in an administrative scheme. Under current plans, the administrative scheme has no legal status. We believe this needs to be addressed.

Recommendation 6 called on the Minister to amend the Bill to require the administrative scheme to be made by subordinate legislation so that it is on a statutory footing. I would invite the Minister to reconsider his response to this recommendation. We did not specify that this detail should be on the face of the Bill or in regulations. We simply want to make sure that there is a legal duty to create this administrative scheme if such important detail is to be provided by this document.

More generally, we agree with the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee that the balance between what is on the face of the Bill, what is left to regulations, and what is contained in the admin scheme requires further work. We have called on Welsh Government to put more of the detail of its planned offer on the face of the Bill, with a power for Ministers to amend details in future by regulations subject to the superaffirmative procedure.

We welcome the Minister’s indication that he is exploring the options available to him. But, we maintain the view that if such steps are not taken, the regulations made under section 1 of the Bill should be subject to a superaffirmative procedure given their significance.

With the time I've got left I would like to concentrate on two issues that caused us particular concern during our scrutiny and on which I would welcome further clarification. Firstly, can the Minister assure me that he will undertake a revised children’s rights impact assessment that considers the impact of the Bill on those children who are not eligible under its provisions? As a committee, we believe this is just as important as assessing the impact on eligible children, and the written response did not clarify this. Secondly, I urge the Minister to reconsider carefully the ability of providers to apply additional charges to parents. We are really concerned that being faced with a bill of up to £162 per month could render the childcare offer unaffordable for the lowest paid working parents. We believe this requires reconsideration.

In closing, I'd like to thank the Minister for his engagement with our report. While some of our recommendations have not been accepted, I recognise that the majority have, and I look forward to the committee continuing to engage constructively with the Minister to try to find some solutions to the most pressing issues we identified. Thank you.