Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of allocating unused monies from the free 15 hours childcare offer for disadvantaged two-year-olds, to develop an intensive programme of home visiting focused on improving school readiness.

Local authorities must fund childcare providers to deliver all the early years entitlements. Central government funds local authorities for the cost of delivering the entitlement for two-year-olds and the entitlements for three- and four-year-olds through the Dedicated Support Grant (DSG), based on take-up according to an annual census. It is the responsibility of local authorities to spend that funding according to the DSG conditions of grant.

We agree that the home learning environment is hugely important and that is why the Secretary of State for Education has set an ambition to halve by 2028 the number of children that finish their reception year still without the early communication and reading skills they need to thrive. This will mean supporting parents to help their child’s early language development, and contributions across society; with businesses, the media, the voluntary sector, and our tech industry forming a coalition to help take this work forward. This will commence with a summit this autumn.