Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much funding her Department has allocated to the Early Years Capital Fund in each of the next three financial years.

The Department for Education has recently made £40m available through the Early Years Capital Fund. This was a bid round committed to creating new 30 hours places and was open to local authorities, working in partnership with providers (this may include providers that currently offer, or plan to offer, provision for 3- and 4-year olds) in their area. This one off bidding round closed at the end of August 2016 and we intend to publish outcomes in December 2016.

As part of our conditions, we expect those successful capital projects to be complete by August 2017. At this stage, there are no plans for further capital funding to support the 30 hour programme beyond the current £40 million through the Early Years Capital Fund. We are however, creating a reserve list of projects that we would seek to fund should additional funding become available.