Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what representations she has received from small childcare providers on her plans to increase free childcare entitlement to 30 hours per week and the ability of those providers to fund care places.

The Department is consulting on key elements of the operation and delivery of the 30 hour extended free entitlement. This includes how the entitlement will be delivered, and how it will meet and be responsive to the needs of working parents. To date we have received over 1000 responses from a wide range of childcare providers, local authorities and provider organisations. We will use these views to inform our thinking as we move to delivering the 30 hours policy. The consultation is available at: https://consult.education.gov.uk/early-years-funding/childcare-free-entitlement

We know there are historical inconsistencies and inefficiencies with the current funding system for 3- and 4-year-olds. That is why we will introduce a national funding formula for early years so that funding is transparently and fairly matched to need and fairly distributed between different types of providers and different parts of the country.