Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help improve safeguarding practices in nurseries and early years settings.

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

The safety and wellbeing of children in nurseries and early years settings is our priority and we continually monitor and review safeguarding requirements for early years settings to ensure children are kept as safe as possible. Where evidence shows that changes are needed, we take action to strengthen requirements and provide clearer expectations for providers.

In September 2025, the government introduced changes to the safeguarding requirements within the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) statutory framework. These changes were informed by evidence and engagement with the early years sector and were designed to strengthen safeguarding practice across settings, including clearer and more robust expectations around safer recruitment, whistleblowing and staff training.

The department is developing free, online safeguarding training in collaboration with the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. The training will support providers to meet statutory requirements and promote a strong and open safeguarding culture across early years settings.

In December, my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, announced that she will be appointing an expert panel to inform guidance for the sector on the effective and safe use of digital devices and CCTV in relation to safeguarding. The panel will consider the question of whether CCTV should be mandated and will set out best practice, technical information and clear expectations on CCTV and digital device usage. No decisions have been taken in advance of this work.

The safety of the youngest children is our utmost priority, which is why the EYFS statutory framework includes clear requirements on safe sleep. The framework requires that babies are placed down to sleep safely and in line with the latest government guidance and that sleeping children are frequently checked. To make the existing requirements clearer for all, we plan to add in more detail to the EYFS frameworks. We have worked with safe sleep experts, including the Lullaby Trust, on proposed new wording.

Ofsted inspects early years providers against the safeguarding and welfare requirements of the EYFS statutory framework. Through our Best Start in Life strategy, we are investing in raising the quality, frequency and consistency of inspections, including work to strengthen oversight of larger nursery chains.

The government is also strengthening multi-agency safeguarding arrangements through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. These measures place duties on safeguarding partners to ensure education providers and childcare settings are appropriately involved in local safeguarding arrangements, while not changing any existing duties on providers.