Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the level of affordability of childcare.

The Government uses a range of information from a number of different sources to consider the affordability of childcare, including: our ‘Childcare and early years survey of parents’ (www.gov.uk/government/statistics/childcare-and-early-years-survey-of-parents-2012-to-2013), independent surveys, such as the Family and Childcare Trust Annual Childcare Cost Surveys (www.familyandchildcaretrust.org/childcare-cost-survey-2015), and the recent House of Lords Select Committee’s report on affordable childcare – to which we responded on 17 December 2015 (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/affordable-childcare-response-to-the-select-committee-report).

We are committed to supporting hard-working parents with the costs of childcare and to make it more affordable. That is why we will be investing an extra £1 billion per annum by 2019-20 to help hardworking families with the cost of childcare. Since 2008 nursery costs have been increasing well above inflation, but the latest survey from the Family and Childcare Trust suggests that the nursery costs of childcare in England for both under and over two-year-olds have remained largely flat across all settings in the last year.

We are already funding 15 hours a week of free early education for all three- and four-year-olds and for disadvantaged two-year-olds – this saves families around £2,500 per child per year. From September 2017, we will go further, delivering an additional 15 hours of free childcare for the working parents of three- and four-year olds (with early implementation in some areas from September 2016) – worth around another £2,500 per child per year. We also continue to invest in the Early Years Pupil Premium.

We are also introducing Tax-Free Childcare from early 2017, under which around 2 million families could benefit by up to £2,000 per child per year or £4,000 per child per year if a child is disabled.

For working parents on low and middle incomes, working tax credit pays up to 70% of their childcare costs and, as of April 2016, this has increased to 85% under Universal Credit. This support will be available, for the first time, to those working fewer than 16 hours per week.