For a government supposedly wedded to spin, Labour makes a pig's ear of selling genuinely good news. Childcare offers some. Look at the chart.
More places are in the pipeline.
One reason for childcare's low salience is fragmentation. One reason so few parents have been shouting praise from the rooftops is administrative. In the past a major new service would have been announced with a big bang, like Lloyd George on pensions or Attlee and the health service. Labour will not do that partly because it is sensitive over accusations of centralisation, partly because it has not so far wanted to commit the huge sums necessary to create a new national service, at least not up front. An alternative might have been to force employers to do their bit.