There may be a few more setbacks along the way, but it appears the Palace is finally to get a creche.
Plans to convert Bellamy's bar into a nursery in time for the next parliament are well advanced, despite mutterings about the loss of another watering hole used mainly by staff rather than MPs.
We have, of course, been here before. In the mid 1980s a senior figure in the Labour opposition floated the idea of a nursery in the old Norman Shaw building.
Staff were delighted with the proposal, and there was even talk of it being subsidised - not one of the options now on the table for pretty obvious reasons.
But enthusiasm rapidly turned into anger and bitterness when it was revealed the facility was only going to be made available to MPs (or should that be MPs' children?).
It never got off the ground.
The next time the idea was floated, about a decade later, there were some wonderful rumours about where the Palace authorities were planning to site the nursery.
One option was said to have been the shooting range - which conjured up appalling images of children lined up like ducks.
Then it was rumoured the authorities had their eye on the old Annies bar, not the one sited near the current hair salon, but the now-defunct dungeon hidden behind the cash machine area.
At least the sight of individuals crawling around on their hands and knees, talking gibberish and occasionally sobbing would not have been out of place.
It certainly says something about the current culture in the Palace that bars are shut down on a regular basis - Annies, the old press bar and now Bellamy's - and a nursery will be created instead.
Not sure exactly what it says though.
