Richard Ottaway, Conservative MP for Croydon South, asked the minister to explain why 'popular and high-quality nurseries' were not able to charge top-up fees.
In reply, Ms Hughes said that what he was asking was for 'free entitlement to become a subsidy for better-off parents', and that 'the private sector could then make higher charges and better-off parents would be simply allowed to use that subsidy'.
Ms Hughes added, 'We will not allow the generation of a two-tier system, in which some families can afford a better quality of care, but poorer families cannot. This will remain a free entitlement for all families.' But she stressed that diversity of provision was important because it gave parents choice and drove up quality throughout the sector.
She said, 'It is still the case that private and voluntary settings provide 81 per cent of full daycare places. They provide 90 per cent of sessional places. So they have the vast majority of market share, both for full daycare and sessional places. That is good; that is what we want to see.'
She added, 'Public sector provision is not driving private and voluntary sector providers into the ground - quite the opposite is true. The money that we have put in has allowed the sector to grow, and that is very important.'