Asked by: Shaun Davies (Labour - Telford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many early years professionals were recruited following the introduction of the £1000 tax-free cash incentive.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The early years workforce is at the heart of the government’s mission to ensure every child has the best start in life. Early education and childcare is delivered by a mixed market of private, voluntary and independent provision who recruit and employ their staff depending upon their business and local need. We are supporting the sector to attract talented staff and childminders to join the workforce by creating conditions for improved recruitment and new routes into the workforce.
Financial incentives are an important part of this plan, and the government has been running two schemes testing incentives in 26 local authorities. New starters and returners needed to meet certain eligibility criteria and to have started in an eligible provider in one of these 26 local authorities to be eligible to receive a £1000 payment.
The financial incentives pilot ran from April 2024 to March 2025 in 20 local authorities and tested whether the offer of an incentive payment would increase recruitment.
The financial incentives live test ran from November 2024 to March 2025 in an additional 6 local authorities. This tested the use of a new online portal as a possible delivery mechanism.
Delivery on both schemes ended in March 2025. The pilot is currently being evaluated and we will set out the results in due course.
Asked by: Shaun Davies (Labour - Telford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much her Department has spent on its scheme to offer £1000 sign-on incentives to help recruit early years professionals.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The early years workforce is at the heart of this government’s mission to give every child the best start in life and deliver the Plan for Change. We have set a milestone of a record proportion of children starting school ready to learn in the classroom. We will measure our progress through 75% of children at the end of reception reaching a good level of development in the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile assessment by 2028.
Early education is delivered by a mixed market of providers who recruit staff depending on business need. The department is supporting providers by creating conditions for improved recruitment. Funding breakdowns by region are not held.
Asked by: Shaun Davies (Labour - Telford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much her Department has spent on programmes to help recruit early years professionals in each of the last five years, broken down by (a) programme and (b) region and nation.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The early years workforce is at the heart of this government’s mission to give every child the best start in life and deliver the Plan for Change. We have set a milestone of a record proportion of children starting school ready to learn in the classroom. We will measure our progress through 75% of children at the end of reception reaching a good level of development in the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile assessment by 2028.
Early education is delivered by a mixed market of providers who recruit staff depending on business need. The department is supporting providers by creating conditions for improved recruitment. Funding breakdowns by region are not held.
Asked by: Shaun Davies (Labour - Telford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the number of early years professionals required in each region in each of the next five years.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
To meet the additional demand placed on the childcare sector by expanding government funded entitlements to childcare, the department estimates that around 35,000 additional staff (headcount) nationally are needed above the 31 December 2023 baseline for autumn 2025. This represents approximately a 10% increase.
We have seen a strong response from the sector so far. 2023 to 2024 saw around 20,000 more staff working in early years nationally, over 1.5 times the level of growth seen between 2022 to 2023.
Responsibility for ongoing market sufficiency rests with local authorities, who are required by legislation to provide sufficient childcare places for children in their local area. We are in regular contact with each local authority, and have a delivery support contractor, Childcare Works, in place to support them, including with analysing workforce demand in their area.
Asked by: Shaun Davies (Labour - Telford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many early years teachers there are in each region.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
The department does not hold data on staff qualification levels by region.
In 2024, 42% of staff within school-based providers and 11% of staff within group-based providers held graduate-level qualifications, as per the 2024 Early Years Provider Survey.
Asked by: Shaun Davies (Labour - Telford)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of raising the retirement age of reservists from 60 to 65.
Answered by Al Carns - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Ministry of Defence) (Minister for Veterans)
I am grateful for the contribution of our Reserve Forces who provide the UK with the ability to meet the threats we face at home and overseas, with the scale, skills, agility and connection to society that it needs, in a cost-effective way.
Alongside the Strategic Defence Review’s interest in Reserves, and in tandem with the transformational work already underway in Defence, I am reviewing the Reserves landscape, in a meaningful and impactful way, to ensure that we are making the most of the unique skills our Reserves offer Defence.
A total of 2,860 Reservists are aged between 55 and 60. Of those, 450 will turn 60 in 2025 if they remain on strength.