Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference the Oral Answer of the Prime Minister of 6 December 2017, Official Report, column 1023, what assessment her Department has made of which local authorities are operating the 30 hours of funded childcare policy effectively.

As set out in the experimental statistics published on 19 December, 224,885 codes have been generated for parents applying for 30 hours free childcare in the autumn term, and there are 202,783 children in a place. This information is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/30-hours-free-childcare-autumn-term-2017.

This demonstrates that local authorities are effectively delivering the policy and we continue to work closely with them, both directly and through our delivery contractor, ‘Childcare Works’, to support them to deliver 30 hours.