Sketch: Maria Miller wrestles with the childcare conundrum I suppose if, as Mrs Miller suggests, lots of mothers set up childcare businesses, they'll be able to save money by looking after their own children at the same time as looking after other mothers" children. Except of course that those other mothers won't need their children looked after, because they'll now have childcare businesses of their own. You see what a complex issue it is. Mrs Miller moved on to women on boards. She said she didn't believe in using quotas to force companies to bring more women into the boardroom. She preferred "the very British way of doing things, through consensus and transparency." Traditionally the "very British way" of dealing with any problem is to ignore it and hope it goes away, but perhaps this amounts to the same thing. At any rate, Mrs Miller would like to see more women on boards. The Government has told FTSE 100 companies that by 2015 a minimum of 25 per cent of their directors must be women. According to a report published in March it's currently 15.6 per cent, a figure that must appal ministers - or at least those ministers who haven't noticed that the percentage of the Cabinet that is female is... 15.6 per cent. Still, Mrs Miller's speech seemed to go down well enough with her (almost wholly female) audience. At any rate they said encouraging things to her. "We women, by our nature, are very committed to what we do," said one woman. "You're in a unique and wonderful position," said another, "because you're the minister responsible for stories." I didn't catch the explanation of that last remark. Perhaps it ties into Mrs Miller's whole "mum" ethos: minister for picking the kids up from school, minister for making their dinner, minister for getting them to bed, and then, before lights out, minister for stories. A women's minister's work is never done.