Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies on the level of funding for childcare providers of survey data from the Pre-School Learning Alliance, published in August 2017, on the proportion of childcare facilities which will potentially become financially unsustainable by August 2018.

The Government will be investing £1 billion extra every year in the early years entitlements, including over £300 million a year to increase our hourly funding rates. This increased level of funding is based on our comprehensive “Review of Childcare Costs” which looked at both the current costs of childcare provision and the implications of future cost pressures including the National Living Wage. The Review was described as “thorough and wide ranging” by the National Audit Office.

Under our new early years national funding formula, we are allocating funding fairly and transparently, so that early years providers can deliver free childcare on a sustainable and high-quality basis in all areas of England. We have also legislated to ensure that local authorities pass on at least 93% of their Government funding to early years providers. Providers in the vast majority of local authorities will have seen funding increases this year and we are also providing guidance, tools and support for providers to help make their businesses more sustainable and efficient.

Our recently published independent evaluation of the early rollout of 30 hours childcare programme shows that over 80% of providers were willing and able to offer the extended hours. The report is available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-rollout-of-30-hours-free-childcare-evaluation.