Ms Ida Lane:

Very briefly. I have gone from being a childminder with three children to doing early childhood care and education, ECCE, with six. I have six children. My service is a very small one. I have gone from having just a small number of policies which were simple to keep to having 300 pages of policies. I must have a policy for my hen in the back garden. I have one for my dogs that are crated away. I have a goldfish policy. It is beyond ridiculous. That is in my family home. I do not want to see that happening for any childminder. It cannot go that direction. You cannot be worrying yourself sick over whether you have a policy for whatever it is.

It needs to be kept simple. It needs to be kept streamlined and completely different from centre-based care. As I say, I went from childminder to being treated as centre-based even though I only have six children. It is a very frightening prospect. I understand completely where small childminders are coming from and where they would be rattling in their boots and saying that they cannot face the stress of that and they will go. That is something we must be extremely mindful of.