Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to Childcare and early education funding in London Report for Greater London Authority, March 2018, published by the Mayor of London and the Family and Childcare Trust on 27 March 2018, if he will make an assessment of the implications for this policy on funding levels for 30 hours of funded childcare in London as a result of the findings in that report.

By 2019 - 20 we will be spending a record £6 billion on childcare support, which includes £1 billion a year by 2020 to deliver 30 hours of free childcare and fund the increase in hourly rates that we introduced in April 2017.

Our average hourly rates for three and four year olds compare very favourably with published research into the cost of childcare by Frontier Economics.

London is benefiting from our investment and has seen an increase of £116 million in their Dedicated Schools Grant early years allocation in 2017-18.

We have always been clear that getting the funding right is critical to the successful delivery of the government’s early years entitlements. This is why we have commissioned Frontier Economics to visit a representative sample of childcare providers and spend time with them to understand their costs in detail.