Education Minister Graham Cregeen will lead a government think tank to look at nursery provision and how to help working families with young children.

An ’inter-departmental working group’ is one of several recommendations from the Tynwald’s social affairs policy review committee, due to be debated today (Tuesday).

It follows a report by that committee, which found a lack of available nursery provision was having ’detrimental’ impact on the quality of life for families affected - and the economy.

The Council of Ministers, in a response to the report published ahead of today’s debate, supports the idea of a working group and says Mr Cregeen will head it up.

The committee recommends the working party should draw up a strategy that would look at parental leave, the possibility of extending the current pre-school credit system to children aged below the three- to four-year-old category and incentivising private sector nurseries to offer places for children under two.

But the government has signalled reservations about some of the other recommendations, which may impact on exactly how far any working group will go with its findings.

One amendment that may come forward would be over the proposal to that any strategy should include how government could offer ’advice, encouragement and financial assistance’ to private sector providers of care and education to children under five.

The Department for Enterprise has signalled it would want a caveat that a ’viable/sustainable business plan’ should be produced first.

The original recommendation also calls on an investigation into whether the current pre-school credit scheme - available for children aged three to four - should be extended to younger children.

The government response says: ’The Department of Education, Sport and Culture has already considered extending the pre-school credit scheme to include a childcare offer for children before their pre school year (three to four years).

’However the strategic approach to this needs to be measured to ensure capacity building in conjunction with private providers over the next three to five years in order to meet the needs of children and parents on the Isle of Man.’ The committee will ask Tynwald to state it wants a ’situation where parents throughout the island have the opportunity to choose the form of childcare, if any, which they want for their children, whether that be nursery or childminding’.

But the DESC wants that to be reworded to add in that Tynwald wants a ’situation where there is a sufficient range of provision available to enable all parents to have the opportunity to choose the form of childcare, if any â?¦’

The committee was told there were only 12 providers, with a maximum of 126 places, that had provision for children aged two or under. More than 40% of parents of children in that age group found it difficult to find provision, compared with just 3% of parents of three- to four-year-olds.

Hopes the pre-school voucher scheme - introduced to help parents of three- and four-year-olds after the closure of state-run pre-schools in 2012 - might have had a knock-on effect and helped parents afford provision for younger siblings, had not been borne out.