The Bill, of course, is aimed at getting parents of children of non-specified age into work or keeping them in work by introducing a non-specified period of funded childcare, and, naturally, it needs to be clear what constitutes a 'parent', which it does successfully in section 1(7)(a) by reference to parental responsibility as defined in the Children Act 1989, and then less successfully at 1(7)(b) by including, I quote,

'any individual who has care of the child'.

Now, what is 'care of a child'? I mean, however, in my view, incoherent the Government's definition of 'childcare' might be, 'care' clearly means something else here, as parents are the ones who benefit from others supplying childcare. Now, it doesn't include corporate parenting, as it refers to an individual having care of the child. Does it mean a foster parent, official or unofficial? What does an individual have to do to prove that they have care of the child? I think this subsection is pretty meaningless as it is, and this amendment allows the Minister a way to give it meaning, although I still think it should have been clear on the face of the Bill.

If he intends not to recommend support for this amendment, I just ask you, Minister, to explain how you intend to remedy this weakness, bearing in mind there's nothing in the Bill at the moment that obliges you to bring forward regulation in order to clarify the position. I don't think your simple assurance will be satisfactory, unless it's backed by a commitment and a timetable to fix this problem. When will you bring forward a regulation? Because I don't think an explanation of 'flexibility' is going to work on this one either, because we will all want to know who can claim that they exercise care. Thank you.