Childcare
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to reform the childcare sector for pre-school children; and whether she will make an assessment of the potential merits of a long-term funding model for pre-school childcare to (a) support working families and (b) increase economic growth.
Answered by Olivia Bailey
It is the department’s ambition that all families have access to high quality, affordable and flexible early education and care, improving the life chances for every child and work choices for every parent.
The department is delivering more support to working families than ever before. Working parents are now benefiting from the rollout of 30 hours per week of government-funded early education and childcare. This is expected to save eligible families using their full entitlement up to £7,500 per eligible child, transforming the costs of having children for families.
To support the expansion of entitlements, the government is boosting the availability of early years places through the School-Based Nurseries programme. The first phase of the programme saw £37 million allocated to 300 schools, enabling the creation of over 5,000 new nursery places from September 2025. Following the June spending review, which confirmed nearly £370 million in additional funding, two further phases have been announced. Phase 2 is set to support at least 300 more school-based nurseries from September 2026. Phase 3 will launch in early 2026 and aims to deliver tens of thousands of additional places nationwide.
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