Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help ensure the availability of childcare (a) before and (b) after school.

The government is investing £289 million in a new wraparound childcare programme to support local authorities in England to work with primary schools and providers to set up and deliver more wraparound childcare before and after school in the term time. The government’s ambition is for all parents of primary school children who need it to be able to access childcare in their local area from 8am to 6pm by September 2026. This will help to ensure that parents have enough childcare to work full time, more hours and with flexible hours.

In October 2023, the department published guidance for local authorities on their role to support the expansion of wraparound childcare along with local authority funding allocations. This guidance can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/wraparound-childcare-guidance-for-local-authorities. In February 2024, the department also published guidance for schools and trusts setting out the expectations of schools in supporting parents to access wraparound childcare. This guidance can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/wraparound-childcare-guidance-for-schools/responding-to-requests-for-wraparound-childcare.

This month, the local authorities of Cambridgeshire, Central Bedfordshire, Kensington and Chelsea, Norfolk and Westminster will be rolling out expanded wraparound provision, five months ahead of the national programme launch in September. These local authorities are forming part of a test and learn phase as ‘early adopters’ to strengthen the delivery of the full rollout.