Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to protect maintained nursery schools from closure.

There is a presumption against the closure of maintained nursery schools. Before a nursery school may close the local authority must set out in a statement their assessment of the quality and quantity of the alternative provision; proposed arrangements to ensure that the expertise and specialism provided by the maintained nursery school continues to be available; and the accessibility and convenience of replacement provision for local parents.

We are also providing local authorities with supplementary funding of £55 million per year to enable them to maintain existing levels of nursery school funding at least to the end of this Parliament. We are currently carrying out a data assurance exercise to ensure local authorities receive the correct amount of supplementary funding.