Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the number of families who will take up 30 hours of funded childcare from September 2025; and what is that number as a percentage of all children from nine months to the start of school.

The department provides annual estimates of the take-up rate of the existing three and four-year-old 30 hours entitlement, after subtracting reception children from the population estimates. This information is available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/education-provision-children-under-5.

The department recently released a costings information note, with information on estimated take-up rates amongst younger children eligible for the new entitlements announced at Spring Budget. This can be found at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/methodology/education-provision-children-under-5-years-of-age-methodology. The take-up is estimated to be between around 30% and 90%, with variation substantially driven by parents’ likelihood of using formal childcare depending on the age of their child. This file also contains data on population projections by age of child for the 2024/25 financial year and beyond.

The attached document shows information on eligibility for entitlements including the department’s eligibility estimate for the existing three- and four-year-old extended hours for working parents entitlement.

The census data and Spring Budget forecasting use numbers of children. The department does not hold data to easily convert these estimates to the numbers of families.