Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help ensure childcare is (a) accessible and (b) affordable for parents in (i) Coventry North East constituency, (ii) Coventry, (iii) the West Midlands and (iv) England.

The department remains committed to improving the cost, choice, and availability of childcare, and we are continuing to look at ways to make childcare more affordable and flexible for parents. In England, we have spent over £3.5 billion in each of the past three years on our early education entitlements to support families with the cost of childcare. This government-funded childcare support has benefited thousands of parents.

In July 2022, the department announced measures to increase the take-up of childcare support to ensure that families can access government support to save money on their childcare bills. This included our Childcare Choices communications campaign to ensure every parent knows about the government funded support they are eligible for. This information is available here: https://www.childcarechoices.gov.uk.

The department continues to engage with sector stakeholders and local authorities to monitor dynamics within local markets, parents’ access to the government’s entitlements, the childcare they require and the sustainability of the sector. We also continue to monitor the sufficiency of childcare. The key measure of sufficiency is whether the supply of available places is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents and children. Ofsted data currently shows that the number of places offered by providers on the Early Years Register has remained broadly stable at 1.3 million places since August 2015.

Under Section 6 of the Childcare Act 2006, local authorities are responsible for ensuring that the provision of childcare is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents in their area. The department has regular contact with each local authority in England and if a local authority raises concerns about sufficiency issues, we will support them with any specific requirements. At present, most local authorities, including Coventry City Council, which contains the constituency of Coventry North East, report that they are fulfilling their duty to ensure sufficient childcare. This is also the case in the West Midlands area.