SUMMARY.The value of preschool education was already well recognised 30 years ago but the UK, unlike other European countries, has never developed a coherent system of public provision for young children. Reliance on private, voluntary and self‐help facilities to fill the gaps has produced diversity but variable quality and little real choice. Over the same period attitudes and family structures have changed and there have been great advances in our understanding of how children's development can be supported and enhanced. The Children Act 1989 provides a legal framework for translating this knowledge into action. Yet at a time when a remarkable degree of professional consensus has been achieved on what is needed, we seem as far as ever from an adequate level of good quality provision. The article suggests that the reason is to be found in the marginalisation of our youngest children as the concern only of their parents and not of society as a whol