Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department plans to take to assess the adequacy of the accessibility to parents of recent childcare announcements made by her Department.

Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)

In 2025/26, the department plans to provide over £8 billion for the early years entitlements, an additional £2 billion compared to 2024/25, saving eligible families who use their full entitlement £7,500 a year on average. The government will provide an additional £1.6 billion per year by 2028/29, compared to 2025/26, to continue the expansion of government-funded childcare for working parents.

The department has announced over £400 million of funding to create tens of thousands of places in new and expanded school-based nurseries to help ensure more children can access the quality early education where it is needed and get the best start in life. The first phase of the programme is creating up to 6,000 new nursery places, with schools reporting over 5,000 have been made available in September 2025.

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 they are taking to address those issues and, where needed, support the local authority with any specific requirements through our childcare sufficiency support contract.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how her Department plans to integrate feedback from schools on the adequacy of funding for the breakfast clubs programme.

Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)

We have always been committed to rolling free breakfast clubs out nationally and the test and learn phase was put in place to inform how best to do so.

We have been listening to schools and other stakeholders throughout this phase and will continue to work with them to learn from our early adopters and inform national rollout. Further information on national rollout will be announced later in the Autumn term.

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of excluding (a) general practitioners and (b) other frontline medical staff from the covid-19 booster vaccination programme in autumn 2025 on (i) patient safety and (ii) workforce resilience; if he will take steps to amend the eligibility criteria.

Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Government is committed to protecting those most vulnerable to COVID-19 through vaccination, as guided by the independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI). The JCVI has advised that COVID-19 is now a relatively mild disease for most people, though it can still be unpleasant, with rates of hospitalisation and death from COVID-19 having reduced significantly since it first emerged. The primary aim of the national COVID-19 vaccination programme remains the prevention of serious illness, resulting in hospitalisations and deaths, arising from COVID-19. On 13 November 2024, the JCVI published advice on the COVID-19 vaccination programme for spring 2025, autumn 2025, and spring 2026. This advice is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-vaccination-in-2025-and-spring-2026-jcvi-advice/jcvi-statement-on-covid-19-vaccination-in-2025-and-spring-2026

On 26 June 2025, the Government accepted the JCVI’s advice for autumn 2025, and in line with this, in autumn 2025 a COVID-19 vaccination is being offered to adults aged 75 years old and over, residents in care homes for older adults, and the immunosuppressed aged six months old and over.

In line with JCVI advice, frontline health and social care workers (HSCWs) and staff working in care homes for older adults are not eligible for COVID-19 vaccination under the national programme for autumn 2025. This is following an extensive review by JCVI of the scientific evidence surrounding the impact of vaccination on the transmission of the virus from HSCWs to patients, protection of HSCWs against symptoms of the disease, and staff sickness absences.

In the current era of high population immunity to COVID-19, additional COVID-19 doses provide very limited, if any, protection against infection and any subsequent onward transmission of infection. For HSCWs, this means that COVID-19 vaccination likely now has only a very limited impact on patient safety and reducing staff sickness absence. Therefore, the focus of the programme is on those at greatest risk of serious disease and who are, as a consequence, most likely to continue to benefit from vaccination.

Any HSCW who is otherwise eligible, because of their age or due to immunosuppression, is encouraged to take up the offer of vaccination.

The Government has accepted JCVI’s advice on eligibility for the autumn 2025 COVID-19 vaccination programme and has no plans to review eligibility for this campaign. As for all vaccines, the JCVI keeps the evidence under regular review.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department plans to provide funding for wraparound childcare after March 2026.

Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)

This government is rolling out free breakfast clubs in all primary schools, with £80 million funding available from April 2026 to bring free breakfast clubs to an additional 2,000 schools. It builds on the more than £30 million the department has invested this year to test and learn free breakfast clubs in 750 early adopter schools.

In addition, since September last year more than 50,000 new before and after school places have been delivered in schools to help working families, with more expected before March 2026. We are working with local authorities, schools, and childcare providers on the next phase with a focus on sustaining childcare places, expanding provision where there is demand, and strengthening the childcare market overall.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to her Department's publication entitled Curriculum and Assessment Review, published on 5 November 2025, if she will instruct Ofqual to release the analysis quoted on the impact of reductions to allocated exam times.

Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)

This is a matter for Ofqual, the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation. I have asked its Chief Regulator, Sir Ian Bauckham, to write to the hon. Member for Meriden and Solihull East, and a copy of his reply will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how her Department plans to measure the (a) effectiveness and (b) uptake of breakfast clubs; and whether she plans to publish this assessment.

Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)

The department is using the findings from the early adopter phase to inform the national roll out of free breakfast clubs. We’re also committed to continuing to learn throughout national roll out and have robust evaluation activity in place, including looking at take up. This will be critical to the programme’s delivery and ensuring that the programme is evidence informed and capable of demonstrating value for money. This will be shared with the public in line with the appropriate government social research guidelines.