Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help increase the availability of childcare in Mid Bedfordshire constituency.

​By 2027/28, the government will expect to be spending in excess of £8 billion every year on free hours and early education, helping working families with their childcare costs. This represents the single biggest investment in childcare in England ever.

The government is providing over £4.1 billion by the 2027/28 financial year to fund 30 hours of free childcare for children over the age of nine months. Investing £204 million next year, increasing to £288 million by 2024/25 for local authorities to increase the hourly funding rate to providers. This will include an average of 30% increase in the national average 2-year-old hourly rate from September 2023, which means that in 2024, the average hourly 2-year-old rate will be more than £8.

As part of this, Central Bedfordshire is due to receive £1,597,036.11 to enable them to deliver additional wraparound places. This financial year, local authorities have also received £12 million of delivery support funding to support them with meeting programme and delivery costs associated with rolling out the expanded early year entitlements. Central Bedfordshire will be allocated funds from this also.

The department is ensuring a phased implementation of the expansion to the 30 hours offer to allow the market to develop the necessary capacity. The department is raising awareness of government funded childcare support available to stimulate increased take-up by eligible families. This support could make a significant financial difference to families, as well as incentivising more eligible providers to register with Ofsted, in order to give parents more choices about where they can use their government funding.

The department also continues to monitor the sufficiency of childcare places. The key measure of sufficiency is whether the supply of available places is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents and children. The department’s Childcare and Early Years Provider Survey shows that the number of places available has remained broadly stable since 2019. A £100 million allocation for local areas to use to make sure childcare settings in their areas have enough physical space, anticipated to add thousands of new places across the country.  More detail on the £100 million capital funding, including allocation amounts to local authorities and accompanying guidance, will be published shortly. The department has regular contact with each local authority in England about their sufficiency of childcare and any issues they are facing.

Under Section 6 of the Childcare Act 2006, local authorities are responsible for ensuring that the provision of childcare is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents in their area. Part B of the 'Early education and childcare' statutory guidance for local authorities highlights that local authorities are required to report annually to elected council members on how they are meeting their duty to secure sufficient childcare, and to make this report available and accessible to parents. Where local authorities report sufficiency challenges, the department discusses what action the local authority is taking to address those issues and where needed support the local authority with any specific requirements through our childcare sufficiency support contract.