Oral Answers to Questions

Heidi Alexander Excerpts

Monday 11th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Joseph Johnson]

I certainly add the Department’s and my congratulations to the hon. Lady’s. That is an important achievement, and we are strongly committed to the UTCs, which will help the Government in our ambition of creating parity of esteem between technical education and more academic routes.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

4. What assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the roll-out of the Government’s policy on 30 hours of free childcare.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Robert Goodwill)]

Our assessment has seen great success in the 12 early delivery areas: more than 15,000 children were able to benefit from the 30 hours entitlement ahead of the offer rolling out in full, taking huge pressures off families’ lives and budgets.

[Heidi Alexander]

Last week, 29% of families with eligibility codes for this term had not yet secured a funded childcare place. Will the Minister update the House on what progress has been made, and will he say whether there are specific parts of the country where securing a place is proving particularly problematic?

[Mr Goodwill]

I was very pleased that by the third day of term last week—Wednesday, when we had the urgent question—71% of parents had found a place for their child. We are looking at the picture up and down the country, and where there are situations of insufficiency, we have made available £100 million of capital funding, which will fund an additional 16,000 places where we need them.