Asked by: Freddie van Mierlo (Liberal Democrat - Henley and Thame)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that (a) early years and (b) childcare infrastructure keeps pace with housing growth in (i) rural and (ii) semi-rural areas.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
It is the department’s ambition that all families have access to high quality, affordable and flexible early education and care, giving every child the best start in life and delivering on our Plan for Change. The government is boosting availability and increasing access to childcare for families through the school-based nurseries programme, including school-led provision and private, voluntary and independent providers operating from school sites.
The key measure of sufficiency is whether the supply of available places is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents and children. We have regular contact with each local authority in England about their sufficiency of childcare and any issues they are facing. Where local authorities report sufficiency challenges, we discuss what action the local authority is taking and, where needed, support the local authority with any specific requirements through our childcare sufficiency support contract.
Childcare Works, a government-supported initiative designed to help local authorities, schools, and early years providers deliver our childcare reforms, additionally provides one-to-one targeted support for local authorities who need it, alongside a wider package of support for all local authorities to support them to deliver the childcare expansion programme.
Asked by: Freddie van Mierlo (Liberal Democrat - Henley and Thame)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has provided guidance to local authorities on (a) forecasting and (b) meeting childcare demand in areas of rapid population growth.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
It is the department’s ambition that all families have access to high quality, affordable and flexible early education and care, giving every child the best start in life and delivering on our Plan for Change. The government is boosting availability and increasing access to childcare for families through the school-based nurseries programme, including school-led provision and private, voluntary and independent providers operating from school sites.
The key measure of sufficiency is whether the supply of available places is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents and children. We have regular contact with each local authority in England about their sufficiency of childcare and any issues they are facing. Where local authorities report sufficiency challenges, we discuss what action the local authority is taking and, where needed, support the local authority with any specific requirements through our childcare sufficiency support contract.
Childcare Works, a government-supported initiative designed to help local authorities, schools, and early years providers deliver our childcare reforms, additionally provides one-to-one targeted support for local authorities who need it, alongside a wider package of support for all local authorities to support them to deliver the childcare expansion programme.
Asked by: Freddie van Mierlo (Liberal Democrat - Henley and Thame)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent discussions she has with the Scottish and Welsh Assemblies on the potential merits of issuing an apology to people affected by the adoption of children of unmarried women between 1949-1976.
Answered by Janet Daby
Departmental officials have had, and will continue to have, discussions with the Scottish Government and the Welsh Assembly to understand and learn from their approaches. We are considering all aspects of this issue with the seriousness and sensitivity it deserves.
Asked by: Freddie van Mierlo (Liberal Democrat - Henley and Thame)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of early years and childcare provision in areas experiencing significant housing development.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
It is this government’s ambition that all families have access to high quality, affordable and flexible early education and care, giving every child the best start in life and delivering on our Plan for Change. In 2025/26, we plan to provide over £8 billion as we roll out the expansion of the entitlements. This represents an additional £2 billion compared to 2024/25. Additionally, the Community Infrastructure Levy and Section 106 legal agreements allow local authorities to raise funds from new developments to support infrastructure needs in their area.
The department has regular contact with each local authority in England about their sufficiency of childcare and any issues they are facing. Where local authorities report sufficiency challenges, we discuss what action the local authority is taking and, where needed, support the local authority with any specific requirements through our childcare sufficiency support contract.
Asked by: Freddie van Mierlo (Liberal Democrat - Henley and Thame)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent discussions she has had with representatives of the early years sector on reforming the funding model to improve sustainability and reduce bureaucracy.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The early years sector was widely consulted as part of the development of the Best Start in Life strategy, published by the department on 7 July 2025. This close working relationship will continue as we deliver on our commitment to consulting with the sector on a set of changes to our approach to early years funding by summer 2026. We want to ensure that funding is distributed fairly, effectively and efficiently, reflecting the costs of delivery in different parts of the country, and supporting those children and areas that have higher levels of additional need.
Asked by: Freddie van Mierlo (Liberal Democrat - Henley and Thame)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of recent changes to National Insurance contributions on the financial viability of early years settings.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
It is the government’s ambition that all families have access to high-quality, affordable and flexible early education and care, giving every child the best start in life.
Despite tough decisions to get public finances back on track, the government is continuing to prioritise and invest in supporting early education and childcare providers, including social enterprise nurseries, with the costs they face.
In the 2025/26 financial year, the department plans to spend over £8 billion on early years entitlements, rising to over £9 billion in 2026/27. We are also providing the largest ever uplift to the early years pupil premium, increasing the rate by over 45%, equivalent to up to £570 per eligible child per year. The department is also providing £25 million in respect of additional National Insurance contributions (NICs) costs through the Early Years NICs and Teachers Pay Grant, for public sector employers in the early years. This is in addition to a further £75 million through the early years expansion grant to support the sector as it prepares to deliver the final phase of expanded childcare entitlements from September 2025.
Asked by: Freddie van Mierlo (Liberal Democrat - Henley and Thame)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has conducted a review of the consistency of early years funding implementation across local authorities in England.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The department will review early years funding, including the early years national funding formulae, consulting on a set of changes by summer 2026. We will review how funding is distributed both nationally and locally to ensure the funding system is fair and effective at reflecting the costs of delivery and appropriately targeting additional need.
Asked by: Freddie van Mierlo (Liberal Democrat - Henley and Thame)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of allocating SEND funding to schools on the basis of their current cohort of pupils rather than the cohort in a previous academic year.
Answered by Catherine McKinnell
The schools national funding formula (NFF) operates on a lag, where schools are funded based on their pupils in the previous October census. This helps to give schools more certainty over funding levels, to aid their planning, and is particularly important in giving schools that see year-on-year reductions in their pupil numbers time to re-organise their staffing and costs before seeing the funding impact.
Schools are expected to meet from their core funding the additional support costs of pupils with special educational needs and disabilities up to £6,000 per pupil per annum. When those support costs exceed £6,000, the authority should also allocate additional top-up funding to cover the excess costs. This funding comes from the authority’s high needs budget, and is based on the needs of current pupils.
Asked by: Freddie van Mierlo (Liberal Democrat - Henley and Thame)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that early years providers are not disadvantaged by restrictions on charging flexibility for funded childcare hours.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
It is this government’s ambition that all families have access to high-quality, affordable and flexible early education and care, giving every child the best start in life and delivering on our Plan for Change.
Government funding for the entitlements does not cover consumables like meals, nappies or sun cream or additional activities, such as trips, so providers are able to ask parents to pay for these things.
However, in line with a recent high court judgment, these charges must not be mandatory or a condition of accessing a funded place. The high court judgement is accessible here: https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/admin/2025/224. The government’s guidance sets out requirements for the delivery of the early education and childcare entitlements in line with the law.
The statutory guidance emphasises transparency at the heart of how the entitlement should be passed on to parents, including that any costs should be clearer on invoices and websites. Providers have until January 2026 to update their information in line with transparency requirements.
Asked by: Freddie van Mierlo (Liberal Democrat - Henley and Thame)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to increase workforce numbers in the early years sector.
Answered by Stephen Morgan - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The early years workforce is at the heart of the government’s mission to give every child the best start in life and deliver the Plan for Change.
The department is supporting the sector to attract talented staff and childminders to join the workforce by creating conditions for improved recruitment. Our national recruitment campaign is urging the public to ‘Do Something BIG’ and start a career working with small children. A dedicated website is helping people to find out more about gaining qualifications and to search for existing job vacancies. To further boost recruitment in early years, we are continuing to offer £1,000 financial incentives.
We are creating new routes into the workforce through skills bootcamps for the early years which lead to an accelerated apprenticeship, and also funding early years initial teacher training as a route for new and existing staff to gain early years teacher status. Our commitment to grow the early years skills pipeline can also be seen through the expansion of the Levelling Up Premium payments. To support childminders to join and stay in the profession we have implemented new flexibilities to work with more people and spend more time working from non-domestic premises.