Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the effect of the covid-19 outbreak on the early years sector.

The government has put in place a number of financial and other measures to support organisations, both public and private, during the COVID-19 outbreak. These are intended to be temporary, timely and targeted, to support public services, people and businesses through this period of disruption.

The ‘Coronavirus (COVID-19): financial support for education, early years and children’s social care’ guidance sets out the financial support that is available for early years providers in England, including the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme. It is available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-financial-support-for-education-early-years-and-childrens-social-care/coronavirus-covid-19-financial-support-for-education-early-years-and-childrens-social-care#sector-specific-guidance.

There are also targeted arrangements for the early years sector, for instance, the one-year business rates holiday for Ofsted-registered private childcare settings in 2020-21.

These are rapidly developing circumstances and we continue to keep the situation under review for short- and long-term planning. We will continue to work closely with HM Treasury to monitor how the support packages are benefitting the early years sector and individual early years organisations.

Guidance on early years and childcare closures is available at the following link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-early-years-and-childcare-closures/coronavirus-covid-19-early-years-and-childcare-closures.