This paper reviews developments in policy on early childhood education and care – early years – under the Coalition Government in England. Three factors came to define the Coalition's performance and record in this area: ambivalence about the rationales for the two areas of early education and childcare; a disconnect between early years and other social welfare policy approaches; and the dominant influence on policy of a political belief in market operations as the favoured delivery model for early years services. Successive early years policy documents also reflected the Coalition's shifting position on young children's rights and interests in relation to early childhood education and care (ECEC).