Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many families have (a) registered and (b) re-registered for a 30 hours of funded childcare place for the summer 2018 term prior to the 31 March 2018 deadline.

The department published data regarding the number of 30 hours codes issued for the summer term on 15 March in ’30 hours free childcare: spring term 2018’. This can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/announcements/30-hours-free-childcare-spring-term-2018.

The release set out that, as of the 7 March 2018, an estimated 353,045 eligible codes had been issued for the summer term.

Of these, 303,772 (86%) were children who had received a code for the spring term and includes autumn and spring children who have successfully reconfirmed. 49,273 (14%) of these are children only eligible for the summer term and therefore new applicants.

We expect these figures to continue to rise as the summer term application deadline of the 31 March 2018 approaches. The next update for summer term will be available in a management information release due in April 2018 at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/30-hours-free-childcare-eligibility-codes-issued-and-validated.