---

Childcare Bill

This is a group of minor but important amendments that the Government proposed in the other place to deal with drafting errors in relation to this Bill, and the commencement order on Adoption and Children Act 2002. The purpose of amendment No. 15 is to reinstate, as local authority social services functions, certain functions relating to the keeping of adoption records. The amendment corrects an unintended consequence of a commencement order for the Adoption and Children Act 2002, which in effect removed these functions from the list of social services functions in schedule 1 to the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970. Local authorities' functions in respect of these records remain in place, but they are no longer social services functions within the meaning of the 1970 Act. This has a knock-on effect; potentially, for example, on the powers of the Commission for Social Care Inspection to inspect local authorities' discharge of their functions under the 1983 regulations. Amendment No. 15 secures the position as it was before the commencement of the 2002 Act at the end of December 2005. The amendment furthermore reinstates a reference to the Adoption Act 1976 in schedule 1 to the 1970 Act so that surviving functions under the 1976 Act are social services functions. Amendments Nos. 13 and 14 make consequential amendments to clauses 109 and 110 to bring amendment No. 15 into effect from the date of Royal Assent. Amendments Nos. 10, 11 and 12 correct the drafting in clause 73 to make it absolutely clear that the provisions in clause 73(5) and 73(7) regarding the registration or de-registration of provision refer to the recipient of a notice from Her Majesty's Chief Inspector. Amendment No. 16 relates to the second part of schedule 2, which amends the Education Act 1996 and corrects the wording that refers to a nursery that is in ““England or Wales”” rather than in ““England and Wales””. Amendments Nos. 17, 18 and 19 correct the drafting in schedule 3, which lists repeals to previous Acts and should reflect schedule 2 amendments that remove the wording from other Acts. The three repeals listed were accidentally left out of schedule 3, so the amendments simply correct the drafting. I hope that Members will agree that these are small but important amendments that need to be made. I recommend that the House agrees with the Lords in the said amendments.