Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:11 pm on 5 December 2018.
Diolch, Llywydd. Thank you to Suzy and Janet for those comments and remarks and they rehearse some of the points that we covered in the meetings, but also at an earlier stage of this Bill as well.
I laid out in my opening remarks why I think what we have in front of us, particularly with amendment 4, gives the right balance between the clarity that we need on the face of the Bill and the duties, and the flexibility to flex the offer in future, which is something, I have to say, that committees have also wanted to see within this—the ability not to go back to primary legislation, but, actually, to revisit it in the way that the scheme operates, and that's an important part in deciding where we put some of the details of this.
But let me just reiterate: in order to give effect to the duty that we're proposing, we as Welsh Ministers, me or anybody else, will actually have to state the detail around the number of hours of childcare and the number of weeks of provision in the regulations made under section 1. And there's no disguising what this offer is: it's already out there being piloted in the early implementer authorities, in 14 local authorities at the moment, and all of them by the time we roll it out. So, it's pretty clear and the regulations will be subject to the affirmative procedure.
And on the question of childcare itself, well, as I said before—and we've covered this in committee—for the purposes of the offer, this is regulated childcare, regulated and inspected childcare that comes under the inspectorates—with Care Inspectorate Wales or with Ofsted—and I turn to those definitions that you mention of childcare in other pieces of legislation.
But in terms of issues such as where there are additional costs, whether it's transport or other costs, I know we'll turn to that in other amendments, and we've discussed them previously at Stage 2 and actually in committee as well, and we'll deal with those there. But we're very clear in the guidance that we've issued, related to transport and other costs, exactly what is allowed and what isn't allowed and what childcare is. To actually put a 'childcare' definition on the face of this Bill would put us in the situation where, if 'childcare' definitions elsewhere were to change, we would, by necessity, have to come back and revisit this in primary legislation.