---

Welsh Affairs

I will not on this occasion because others want to speak. I have been appalled by how child care costs have gone up. We asked the Library to check out the prices of child care in Wales and it found that the cheapest is, on average, about £90 a week and the most expensive is £190 a week, so there is an issue with getting access to child care. I am very concerned by the anecdotal stories I hear from mothers who are being told that they have to return to work when their child is five years old. When they explain that they have child care difficulties, they are asked—this is anecdotal and I am in the process of checking this out—why they cannot leave their children with older siblings. I am really concerned about that.