Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what discussions he has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on increasing the Funded Early Learning rate given to local authorities for nursery funding to align with the increase in the National Minimum Wage from April 2022.
At the Spending Review on 27 October 2021, we announced that we are investing additional funding for the early years entitlements worth £160 million in the 2022-23 financial year, £180 million in 2023-24 and £170 million in 2024-25, compared to the current year. This is for local authorities to increase hourly rates paid to childcare providers for the government’s free childcare entitlement offers and reflects cost pressures, like the increase in the national minimum wage, as well as anticipated changes in the number of eligible children.
For 2022-23 we will increase the hourly funding rates for all local authorities by 21p an hour for the two-year-old entitlement and, for the vast majority of areas, by 17p an hour for the three and four-year-old entitlement. Uplifted funding rates for each local authority for 2022-23 were published on 25 November 2021: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-funding-2022-to-2023.