Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, for what reason (a) the number of Ministers of her Department has reduced by one in the current Parliament and (b) there is no longer an early years Minister in her Department.

As the new Minister for Children and Families, the early years and childcare agenda is an important part of my portfolio and a top priority for me and for this Government.

I am committed to ensuring that all children have access to high quality early education, which the evidence shows has a positive impact on a child’s outcomes later in life. Bringing early years under the same portfolio as my other responsibilities is a valuable opportunity to make even more progress on important cross-cutting issues including social mobility and improving outcomes for special educational needs and disadvantaged children.

A full list of my Ministerial responsibilities are available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/ministers/minister-of-state-children-and-families.