Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what risk assessment his Department has conducted on allowing early years providers to remain open during the covid-19 lockdown announced in January 2021.

We continue to prioritise keeping early years settings open in full because of the clear benefits to children’s education and wellbeing and to support working parents. Early education gives children the communication and social skills which set them up for life. Caring for the youngest age group is not something that can be done remotely.

Public Health England's advice remains that young children are less susceptible to the virus and play a lower role in transmission, usually because young children have lower contact outside their household.

Early years settings remain low risk environments for children and staff. Current evidence suggests that pre-school children (0 to 5 years) are less susceptible to infection and are unlikely to be playing a driving role in transmission. There is no evidence that the new variant of COVID-19 disproportionately affects young children. The current confirmed case rate of COVID-19 amongst young children remains the lowest of all age groups.

Furthermore, settings should continue to undertake risk assessments and implement the system of controls. It is a legal requirement that settings should revisit and update their risk assessments (building on the learning to date and the practices they have already developed). It is good practice to treat risk assessments during COVID-19 as a “living document” and keep them under very regular review in the light of any changing circumstances.

Further information on risk assessments and the system of controls can be found in the guidance here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/950653/Education_and_childcare_settings_-_national_lockdown_from_5_January_2021_.pdf.