Bermuda's laws are powerless to shut down home day care providers even when they're putting very young children in an unsafe environment.

MPs will today debate the Children Amendment Act, which corrects a flaw in the existing Children Act by clarifying regulations for home day care providers who mainly look after infants from two months to two years.

Families Minister Glenn Blakeney said that when the Children Act introduced regulations in 1998, it focused on day care centres alone, meaning those providing care at home fell outside the loop.

"Recently, it became apparent that the Children Act was unable to stop the operation of a home day care provider, even in a scenario where there might be a strong reason to suspect that a child was in an unsafe setting," Mr Blakeney has said in a ministerial statement explaining the new law.

"This obvious flaw in the legislation required immediate correction to ensure the safety of children.

"The 2010 Children Amendment Act's more explicit mention and treatment to the day care provider clarifies the regulation of this setting and allows for emergency closure."

The law also establishes children to staff ratios to ensure best quality care.

Bermuda Democratic Alliance MP Shawn Crockwell said his party supports the amendments.

He said: "The BDA appreciates that there are greater demands for non-parental childcare within our community and legislating the minimum quality standards for childcare should improve the average quality of the non-parental care to which our children are exposed. This can only be of benefit to the community."

Parliamentarians are due to debate just one other matter in the House of Assembly today: the long-awaited Boundaries Commission report.

Members will be asked to approve a newly drawn electoral map, which moves constituency borders to make population sizes roughly equal — moving blocks of voters so that some MPs face a battle hanging onto their seats.

Premier Paula Cox had been expected to press ahead with that document last week after former Premier Ewart Brown repeatedly stalled it last summer. However, Ms Cox deferred it for seven days because other items were being discussed instead.

Yesterday, Mr Crockwell said his party supports the changes to the electoral map, but that amendments need to made to the Parliamentary Election Act 1978 to ensure the most fair electoral results.

He added that his party was pleased the recommendations were prepared by a bipartisan Boundaries Commission.

"We think that this type of collaboration is the way that major decisions affecting the country should be achieved," he said.

"Our concern is with the fact that the data used in formulating these recommendations was grossly outdated which significantly weakens the overall objective of creating equal constituencies to produce the most fair electoral results. Until we substantially reform the Parliamentary Election Act 1978 we will not achieve the Government's stated objective of one man one vote of equal value."