School-based Nursery Capital Grants

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Education (Bridget Phillipson)]

With permission, I will make a statement to update the House on the roll-out of nurseries in our primary schools.

This Labour Government are bringing the change that families deserve. We made promises to the parents and children of this country and, not nine months in, we are acting to deliver on them. Free breakfast clubs are already being rolled out, the curriculum and assessment review is in full swing, and children’s social care is seeing the biggest overhaul in a generation. We have funding for 10,000 new places for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities, backing for up to 10,000 more apprentices to qualify, new improvement teams for our schools and a new allowance for our kinship carers—promises made, promises kept. Here, today, we go further.

This £37 million in funding for 300 primary schools to open and expand nurseries is a big step towards delivering 3,000 nurseries for schools, a big step towards delivering childcare for parents and a big step towards delivering the best start in life for all our children. I want that best start in life for every child, because I want opportunity for every child. I want every child in every village, town and city across our country to grow up knowing that success belongs to them. That is the kind of country I want to live in—the country that this Labour Government want to build, with opportunity not just for some, but for all our children.

To achieve that, we need to start early, before university or college, and even before school—in the earliest years of our children’s lives. Those years are fundamental to opportunity. That is where gaps in learning and development first appear, and the longer we wait, the wider they grow and the harder they are to close. That is why, when I am in schools, colleges and universities—even in those places—they agree that the biggest chance to make an impact on our children’s lives sits in those crucial early years. That is why this is my No. 1 priority.

If we get this right, and we set all children on the track to success, that is where they will stay. That is why, despite the huge fiscal challenges that we inherited from the Conservatives, we chose to invest more than £8 billion in the early years at the last Budget. It is why the early years are a central part of the Prime Minister’s plan for change, setting the target of a record share of children starting school ready to learn. That is why I am today announcing the 300 schools that will be delivering our first wave of new and expanded school-based nurseries. Many of these school-based nurseries will serve communities facing big challenges, where there is strong evidence of need. Overall, it means up to 6,000 more nursery places for young children where they will have the biggest impact, with most of them starting in September this year. That is vital, because that is when the final stage of the 30 hours a week childcare entitlement will kick in. When that is joined up with the offer for three and four-year-olds, working parents of children from nine months right up to the beginning of school will get 30 Government-funded hours of childcare a week.

The 300 schools are just the start. It is 300 on the road to 3,000 school-based nurseries. We will work with schools, voluntary and private providers, teachers and local partners to find and spread what works. By the end, it will mean that tens of thousands more parents have the power to choose the hours they want to work.

What a contrast with the Conservatives, because what we inherited was not just an offer that they had not bothered to fund, but a pledge without a plan, with places, promises and provision missing. Parents made decisions on the back of those promises. Again and again, I hear from parents how much they have been relying on the promises that the previous Government scattered about like confetti. Across our country, this Government are delivering change in months, when the last Government waited 13 years before signing a post-dated cheque.

The changes that we are making will give parents more control over their lives, time to choose their working hours and money back in their pockets. The last Coram report showed that the effects are starting to flow through. Childcare costs for under-threes in England have halved since the expansion, but ultimately childcare and early years education is about children. It is about launching a lifetime of learning and starting as we mean to go on, so as we roll out these school-based nurseries, we are also adding the biggest ever uplift to the early years pupil premium, closing the attainment gap and giving every child the support that they need to learn and grow, and we are supporting early years educators to build their expertise.

It is not just what is taught in those nurseries that counts, but where they are located: they are in primary schools, which is no accident. We are centring schools in their communities, starting early, working with the voluntary sector and private providers too, so that the move from nursery to school is a natural step, from one room to another, sometimes even in the same building, as is the case at St Anne’s church academy in Weston-super-Mare. Having a nursery on site means that stronger, longer lasting relationships with families can be built. Parents feel that they are part of the community, so they engage more when their child starts nursery and then moves into school. When their child starts reception, there are no big, scary changes, building the sense that school is where they are meant to be.

I saw that powerfully this week when I went to Peterborough to visit Fulbridge academy. Little Oak nursery sits at the heart of the school. While I was there, I spoke to Hannah, a working mum whose little boy, Nile, goes to the nursery. She told me all about the difference that Little Oak was making to her family, and about how her son is making friends and taking big strides in his learning, ready to join his two older siblings at school in September. The nursery plays a big part in making Fulbridge academy the centre of that community.

It is the same for free breakfast clubs, which is why we announced the 750 early adopters this year. Schools are the beating hearts of their communities, where children come together to eat, learn and grow. It is good for attendance and achievement, for behaviour and belonging, and for children and their life chances. That is the point: this is action for them, to give them the start that they deserve, because that is my No. 1 priority, built on a deep and fierce commitment to the children of this country in the first years of their lives, taking their first steps into the world.

In our youngest children’s faces and in the faces of all who work with them, we see something that for so long has been missing from our country: hope. We see the hope of a brighter and better future, the hope of a secure and prosperous world, the hope that tomorrow can be better than today and the hope that this is a Government that are on their side. That is the future that we shape together, not face alone. That is the hope that so many people in our country have—that our best days lie ahead of us. That is what the people of this country chose in the general election last July, when they chose hope over fear, and chose a brighter tomorrow, not a bitter yesterday.

And that is why I am so focused on getting on and delivering change, because it matters so much for lives now, not in some distant future. Early years are where futures are made, where life chances are won and where healthier societies are built. That is the prize on offer. Our youngest generation is the first generation for whom opportunity is open to all, right from the start, and I know that Members from across the House will agree that that is a prize worth fighting for. I commend this statement to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the shadow Secretary of State.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bridget Phillipson]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who brings real expertise to this place, through her background and wealth of experience in education. Through the expansion that we are rolling out this year, parents will see considerable savings, but crucially it will ensure that all our children get the best possible start in life. While I recognise her disappointment that her own constituency did not benefit this time around, I note that Portsmouth South secured a school-based nursery this time around. Of course, this is only phase 1 of what will be a wider roll-out as time progresses.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

Access to flexible, high-quality early years provision gives children the start they deserve and parents the choice they need to live their lives, and it is one of the best possible investments we can make in the future of our country. For those families living in childcare deserts left by the previous Conservative Government, today’s announcement will be welcome news.

I welcome the sorely needed uplift in the early years pupil premium, but school-based nurseries can only ever be part of the puzzle. We will never fix the crisis in early years without fixing the deep problems facing private and charitable providers. They deliver the vast bulk of the Government’s free entitlement, yet they face some of the toughest challenges in making ends meet. The Government’s national insurance hike, the failure to ensure that rates actually cover delivery costs and damaging guidance to local authorities on funding agreements, which came into effect this week, mean that many are struggling to stay afloat. We have already heard that the Early Years Alliance survey found that four in 10 said they would reduce their number of funded places for three-year-olds and four-year-olds in the next year. Some 94% said they would be forced to raise their fees for parents for non-funded hours, and almost a third said they were likely to permanently close. Can the Secretary of State tell me how that is extending choice for parents? Building Blocks nursery in Teddington in my constituency is now operating at a loss and faces some incredibly painful decisions that will hurt parents, children and staff.

While I welcome today’s announcement, will the Secretary of State commit to an urgent review of the rates paid for free entitlements to ensure that they cover delivery costs? Will she finally take this opportunity to recognise the deep damage that the national insurance hike is doing and ensure that early years providers are exempted? Finally, will she look again at the damaging guidance issued by her Department on charging and funding agreements?