Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that early years funding supports a) financial accessibility for families and b) sustainability for providers.

This government continues to prioritise and protect investment in the early years, which is why we are investing over £1 billion more in the early years entitlements this year compared to 2025/26 to deliver a full year of the expanded entitlements, and an above inflation increase to entitlements funding rates. The most recent Coram–PACEY Childcare Survey 2026, finds that the expansion of 30 hours of funded childcare has significantly reduced out of pocket costs for eligible working parents in England, in some cases making part time childcare effectively free during term time.

By allowing funded hours to be stretched across the year, deducting closures from calculations, and enabling mixed‑provider models, the system is designed to work alongside all‑year childcare businesses, managing funding and fees transparently and within national limits, broadening parental choice.

The department has announced over £400 million of funding to create tens of thousands of places in new and expanded school-based nurseries to help ensure more children can access the quality early education where it is needed and get the best start in life. The first phase of the programme is creating up to 6,000 new nursery places, with schools reporting over 5,000 have been made available from September 2025.