Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans she has to ensure the ongoing high quality of childcare; and if she will make a statement.

We know that high quality early years education helps to give children the best start in life. The quality of early years provision has continued to rise in recent years and the latest figures from Ofsted show that 93% of providers were rated “good” or “outstanding”, as at 31 March 2017.

Staff qualifications have been consistently identified as a predictor of higher quality in early years provision, particularly graduate-level qualifications. For this reason the Department published the Early Years Workforce Strategy in March to support the development of a well-qualified workforce with the appropriate knowledge, skills and experience to deliver high quality early education and childcare for children from birth to age five. Commitments in the workforce strategy include: improving the quality of early years training, level 2 qualifications and providing access to continuous professional development. The Early years Workforce Strategy is available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-workforce-strategy.