Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of available nursery places in (a) Canterbury constituency, (b) Canterbury district, during the (i) 2021-22 and (ii) 2022-23 school year.

Department for Education officials monitor the sufficiency of childcare places in England through a combination of regular surveys, telephone calls and email contact with local authority early years teams. We have not seen councils reporting any substantial place supply issues, and we have not seen a substantial number of parents unable to secure a childcare place this term or since early years settings re-opened fully on 1 June 2020. Kent County Council, which holds the statutory duty to secure sufficient childcare places in Canterbury, is not reporting any issues with childcare places at present.

According to Ofsted data published on 30 November, the number of places offered by non-domestic providers on the Early Years Register in the Kent County Council area has remained broadly stable between August 2015 and August 2021, as is true across England.