Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure the sustainability of maintained nursery schools; and what assessment they have made of any additional costs faced by those nurseries as a result of the additional statutory responsibilities placed on them when compared to other early years settings.

Maintained nursery schools (MNS) make a valuable contribution to improving the lives of some of our most disadvantaged children. They experience costs that other providers do not, and we are providing local authorities with around £60 million a year in supplementary funding to enable them to protect MNS funding.

This arrangement is due to end in March 2020, and what happens after that will be determined by the next Spending Review. Owing to uncertainty over the exact date of the Spending Review, we are considering how best to handle transitional arrangements for a number of areas, including MNS.

To ensure that decisions are evidence-based, we have commissioned research to explore in detail the costs that MNS experience. That research will be published soon.