Education

Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi Excerpts

Tuesday 6th December 2022 Ministerial Corrections

[Claire Coutinho]

As I said in answer to earlier questions, we put an extra £0.5 billion into the early years sector in the 2021 spending review to increase the hourly rate, split over the three-year spending review period. We are also spending money on qualifications and training for teachers. This sector is very important to us, and we continue to consider all the ways we can support it.

Accessible and Affordable Childcare

The following is an extract from Education questions on Monday 28 November 2022.

[Mr Dhesi]

The Government are knowingly underfunding the entitlement to 15 or 30 hours of childcare by over £2 per hour, thereby forcing providers to cross-subsidise and leading to astronomical costs for parents. New Ofsted data shows that 4,000 childcare providers closed within the year to March 2022, thereby further limiting access to childcare. When parents are having to pay more for their childcare than on their rent or mortgage, and adults without children are saying that childcare costs are forcing them out of parenting and precluding them from that, does she agree that she and the Government are presiding over a broken childcare system?

[Claire Coutinho]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question. Childcare is of course enormously important, and it is this Conservative Government who have expanded the childcare offer successively over a number of years. Last year in the spending review, we set out an additional £500 million to come into the sector, and we are also supporting private providers with their energy bills this year.

[Official Report, 28 November 2022, Vol. 723, c. 637.]

Letter of correction from the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho):

An error has been identified in the response given to the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi).

The correct response should have been: