Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the implications for his policies are of the survey of childcare providers in England conducted by the Pre School Learning Alliance in December 2017.

This government is committed to helping working families with accessible, affordable childcare. We are already starting to see how 30 hours is making a real difference to the lives of families across the country. This builds on the success of our 12 early delivery areas, which gave 30 hours to over 15,000 children. The independent evaluation of these early delivery areas showed that providers were willing and able to offer 30 hours places, as well as a number of positive impacts on families’ finances and their ability to work.

We have commissioned independent evaluators, Frontier Economics with NatCen Social Research and researchers from the University of East London, to conduct an evaluation of the first year of national rollout of 30 hours across England.

We will consider the survey of childcare providers in England conducted by the Pre School Learning Alliance alongside other evidence we collect, including our nationally representative surveys of parents and providers.