Is the government’s expansion of free childcare actually going to work? The early years sector says not. They have warned that parents of two year olds won’t get the 15 funded hours they have been promised without eye-watering fee hikes overall – and that some nurseries may even be forced to close because they simply can’t balance the books. No wonder, then, that this policy was once again the focus of Labour’s attack at Education Questions in the Commons this afternoon.

Ministers really do think the complaints about the scheme now simply amount to teething problems

A number of opposition MPs, including Stella Creasy and shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson, raised the looming launch of these extra free hours, supposed to start in April, during the session. Creasy was particularly concerned about the impact this was having on children with special educational needs, and got a reply from the minister of state responsible for the policy, David Johnson. He said:

I appreciate it must be very frustrating for the honourable lady, who genuinely cares about childcare, to be part of a party that cannot be bothered to come up with any plan for it, and has had to ask someone else to write them one because they can’t think of one. But on her specific issue, as I said earlier, we are working with every local authority to make sure they have the places they need for all children.

The ding-dong between Phillipson and Education Secretary Gillian Keegan was naturally rather more aggressive. The Secretary of State gave her opening statement at the topical questions section of the session, insisting that ‘we’re delivering the largest ever expansion of childcare in England’s history’. She was, she said, ‘delighted to update that the House that our latest projections show more than 150,000 new funded places will be secured by early April’. She added that ‘we expect that number to grow further’.

When Phillipson got up to speak, she complained that ‘neither the Secretary of State nor any Treasury minister met with representatives of the early years sector in the month before last year’s Budget announcement’. She added:

Now with just three weeks to go, parents, providers and even their own civil servants are sounding the alarm. Over seven in 10 providers said they’re not going to offer additional places, a quarter said they’re likely to close within a year. So will the Secretary of State now guarantee that all parents will be able to access the childcare places that she promised?

Keegan’s reply was ‘yeah, absolutely’. And then she went back to the attack line that we hear from all Conservative ministers now: Labour have no plan. The interesting thing about this attack is that it seems to be permitted even when there doesn’t seem to be a discernible government plan, either, or when that plan is manifestly struggling with reality.

We did learn that there were new statistics suggesting that there will be more funded places available in April – and that ministers really do think the complaints about the scheme now simply amount to teething problems. But even if those problems turn out to be rather more serious than Keegan and her colleagues are suggesting, they will likely still respond to them by pointing out that the opposition doesn’t have a plan.

This will become a problem if Labour does get into government. But they’re not there yet. Until they are, the workability of the Tory plan remains pretty key.