Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the oral contribution of the Minister of State for Children and Families of 12 October 2017, Official Report, column 212WH, in how many instances parents are using 30 hours of free childcare with (a) one provider, (b) two providers and (c) more that two providers.

I am sorry but we do not currently hold data on how many parents are accessing 30 hours of free childcare with multiple providers at a national level but this will be captured in the 2018 census.

However, our recently published independent evaluation of the early delivery programme shows parents are prepared to use multiple providers, with around 18% of children using multiple providers in three of the four early rollout areas. In early implementation, the report found that around one in five children used two providers for the free entitlement hours but the use of three or more providers was rare.

The full reports are available here:

• https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-rollout-of-30-hours-free-childcare-evaluation.
• https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/30-hours-free-childcare-early-implementation-evaluation.