Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, for what reason the policy costings of his decision to introduce 30 hours a week of free childcare for eligible working parents of children aged 9 months to 3 years are not included within HM Treasury's document entitled Spring Budget 2023: Policy Costings; and if he will publish those costings.

The Policy Costings document sets out the assumptions and methodologies underlying costings for tax and annually managed expenditure (AME) policy decisions, where those policies have a fiscally significant impact on the public finances. These costings were submitted to the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) for scrutiny and were certified as part of the forecast process.

The Policy Costings document and process does not cover changes to Departmental Expenditure Limits (DEL) set at Spending Review 2021, including new childcare measures set out at Budget, as DEL spending is typically more predictable than AME. Forecasts for DEL spending are submitted to the OBR separately, and set out in Table 4.1 of the Budget document, which includes new childcare measures.