Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he plans to review the effect of the introduction of 30 hours' free childcare on childcare businesses; and if he will make a statement.

The rollout of 30 hours’ free childcare for working parents of three and four year olds has been a success, and 294,000 children benefited in the spring term, saving parents money and helping them to bring balance between work and family life.

We continue to monitor both the implementation of 30 hours and also delivery costs. We have recently commissioned new research to provide us with further robust and detailed data of the costs of delivering childcare for under five-year-olds using a representative sample of early years providers.

The department has awarded grants to the National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) and the Professional Association of Childcare and Early Years (PACEY) to develop new business sustainability resources for childcare providers, which are available online at: https://www.earlyyearsbusinesszone.org.uk/ and https://www.pacey.org.uk/business/.

A further package of support materials are also available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/early-years-business-sustainability.