Chamber and committees

The greatest concern is about who has professional capacity and how it can be maximised at pace. That is a potential solution.

The convener is waggling her pen—

I think that she was waggling it at me, minister.

Sure.

In relation to other models around the world, have we missed an opportunity to look at, for example, the national health service? I know people here, in my region and in Edinburgh, who have not gone back to work because the childcare offering is just not effective for them due to the time that it takes to cross the city and the lack of flexibility, sometimes, in NHS shift patterns.

Do we need to look at public services? Since we are trying to achieve a few outcomes—not only providing the opportunity for childcare but also getting people to come back to work in our public services, with the workforce challenges there—why have we not looked at the NHS providing that in-house opportunity to actually cater for real-life experiences?

Does anybody want to tackle this question?

Does anyone else want to add anything?

I have no more questions on this issue, but I may come back in later.

Some of my questions have already been answered, but I want to ask a few further questions on the topic of eligibility. How can we avoid income thresholds becoming a disincentive for parents to increase their earnings? Do you have any views on that specifically?

If no one else wants to add to that, I will go back to some of the responses that we received from our call for evidence. In the responses, there was an ask for universal free provision. Jonathan Broadbery, you have touched on capacity issues and resources. Do you think that universal free provision is currently feasible for under-threes and school-aged children, or are you all on the same page with regard to wanting to see that targeted support, which I think you have all touched on?

Good morning, everybody. I am an MSP for the Lothian region.