Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 15 March 2019 to Question 229151, whether the £24 million of supplementary funding for maintained nurseries has been re-allocated from within his Department's existing budget.

Maintained nursery schools (MNS) make a valuable contribution to improving the lives of some of our most disadvantaged children.

We have been providing around £60 million per year of supplementary funding to local authorities so that they can preserve MNS funding. We listened to concerns about the timing of the Spending Review and we announced that we would provide local authorities with around £24 million of further supplementary funding, to enable them to fully fund MNS for the whole of the 2019/20 academic year. Local authorities can feel reassured they can allocate September 2019 places in MNS with confidence.

All expenditure that falls in the next Spending Review period, including the additional supplementary funding, is a matter for the Spending Review. That includes any budgeting decisions related to the additional supplementary funding.