Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when her Department plans to announce levels of government support for state-maintained nurseries for the years after 2019.

This government recognises that maintained nursery schools experience costs that other providers do not. That is why we are providing local councils with supplementary funding of around £60 million a year until the end 2019-20 at least, to enable them to maintain 2016-17 levels of nursery school funding. We are working closely with the sector and others on our plans for what happens beyond this, and we will set out next steps in due course.