Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many additional nursery places have been created since June 2017.

The childcare market is primarily a private sector market, so the number of childcare places will reflect how the market responds to parental demand and changes in the child population. As such, the number of places is monitored by Ofsted and not by the government. However, the government has invested in a number of capital programmes.

As part of the School Nurseries Capital Fund, the department recently allocated nearly £24 million for 69 successful projects across every region of England. This will help to create new school-based nursery places in disadvantaged areas so more children can access high-quality early education.

The department has supported the growth and creation of additional nursery places to deliver the 30 hours entitlement. In 2016, the department ran a £100 million early years capital bid round. Local authorities, in partnership with providers, were invited to submit bids. The department announced that over 350 projects across 123 local authorities were successful in this bid round.

The free schools that have opened since 2017 have created over 650 full-time equivalent nursery places, with plans for over 100 full-time equivalent more places in the future. Since 1 June 2017, 3 new local authority maintained schools have opened with nursery provision.

On 31 March 2019, there were 1.3 million childcare places offered by providers on the Ofsted Early Years Register.