Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has had discussions with the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government on supporting early years provision delivered through village halls and other community assets.

In 2026/27, the department expects to provide over £9.5 billion for the early years entitlements, more than doubling annual public investment in the early years sector compared to 2023/24, as we have successfully rolled out the expansion of government-funded childcare for working parents.

The government has committed to working with the sector to better support parents in poorer and rural areas. The department has announced over £400 million of funding to create tens of thousands of places in new and expanded school-based nurseries to help ensure more children can access quality early education where it is needed and get the best start in life. The first phase of the programme is creating up to 6,000 new nursery places, with schools reporting over 5,000 have been made available from September 2025.

The department has regular contact with each local authority in England about their sufficiency of childcare and any issues they are facing. Where local authorities report sufficiency challenges, we discuss what action they are taking to address those issues and, where needed, support the local authority with any specific requirements through our childcare sufficiency support contract.

The department does not hold data on how many rural early years settings have closed in each of the last five years and the proportion of those that were operating from shared or temporary premises. The department sets the standards and statutory requirements that all early years providers in England must meet. There is no published national statistic (for the UK or individual nations) that gives a numerical proportion of rural childcare providers operating specifically from shared or temporary premises. Neither the England Survey of Childcare and Early Years Providers nor Ofsted statistical releases break down premises type in this way for rural settings.

Ofsted is responsible for the registration, regulation and inspection of childcare provision in England.