Nurseries: Coronavirus

(asked on 19th March 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what financial assistance is being provided to nurseries advised to close due to the covid-19 outbreak; and what assurances he has received from insurers on providing cover to nurseries despite that infection not being a named disease at the time of cover.


Answered by
Vicky Ford Portrait
Vicky Ford
This question was answered on 6th April 2020

We are working hard to mitigate the impacts of COVID-19 on all parts of our society, including individuals and businesses.

Whilst individual insurance arrangements are a matter for providers to discuss with their insurers and we are unable to give legal advice on insurance cover, we understand that in many cases, the insurance that early years providers have will not cover them for income lost during COVID-19 related closures. That is one of the reasons why we announced on 17 March that we will continue to pay funding to local authorities for the early years entitlements for 2, 3 and 4-year-olds and that funding would not be clawed back from local authorities when children are unable to attend due to COVID-19.

We expect local authorities to follow the Department for Education’s position and to continue paying all childminders, schools and nurseries, for the early years entitlements – even if providers have suspended delivery of those entitlements due to COVID-19. This protects a significant proportion of early years providers’ income. The government also announced a 12 month business rates holiday for private nurseries and set out a range of wider support for businesses and workers to reduce the impact of COVID-19, which many early years providers will benefit from.

We will be keeping under close review what further support businesses and workers may require.

Guidance on closures of early years settings, including support for workers and businesses, is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-early-years-and-childcare-closures/coronavirus-covid-19-early-years-and-childcare-closures#funding.

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