Childcare: Costs

(asked on 25th October 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to help ensure that parents who work nights do not pay more for their childcare because of their work patterns.


Answered by
Claire Coutinho Portrait
Claire Coutinho
Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero
This question was answered on 8th November 2022

The department is committed to improving the cost, choice, and availability of childcare and we have spent more than £20 billion over the past five years to support families with the cost of childcare. Government funding schemes are designed to be flexible enough to support families’ different situations.

To increase choice and flexibility for families even further, the department announced plans to grow the number of childminders. To help parents with the cost of living, we are running a campaign to ensure that parents are aware and accessing all government funded childcare support they are eligible for, and to encourage more eligible providers to register with Ofsted to give parents more choices about where they can use their government funding.

Improving parents’ access to affordable and flexible childcare is important for the department, and we want to make our current suite of offers work as effectively as possible and ensure it delivers for those parents who need it.

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