Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to his oral contribution in response to the hon. Member for Twickenham during the Oral Statement of 7 July 2025 on Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life, Official Report, column 687, how much funding Ofsted allocated for early years inspections for (a) each of the last three financial years and (b) the current financial year and each of the next three financial years (i) prior to and (ii) after her Oral Statement on 7 July 2025.

In the 2022/23 financial year, Ofsted allocated £24 million to early years inspections. In 2023/24, they allocated £21.8 million, and in 2024/25 they allocated £21.3 million. In the current 2025/26 financial year, Ofsted allocated £20.9 million and has allocated £20.9 million for each of the next three financial years (2026/29). These costs include inspection, registration visits and associated quality assurance of these visits. These costs are for inspection of providers on the Early Years Register (EYR) only, and so the Childcare Register is excluded. Cost of regulation is also not included. The department’s budgets for next three financial years have not yet been finalised but funding will be provided by the department to Ofsted to increase the frequency of EYR inspections and to improve the quality of EYR inspections. This is to be agreed between the department and Ofsted.