Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what scientific evidence has been provided to the Government on the transmission of covid-19 in early years settings.

Ensuring the safety of children, the workforce and families is our overriding priority.

Early years settings remain low risk environments for children and staff. Current evidence suggests that pre-school children (0 to 5 years) are less susceptible to infection and are unlikely to be playing a driving role in transmission. There is no evidence the new strain of the virus causes more serious illness in either children or adults and there is no evidence that the new variant of coronavirus disproportionately affects young children.

Public Health England (PHE) advice remains that the risk of transmission and infection is low if early years settings follow the system of controls, which reduce risks and create inherently safer environments. The following report, from PHE, shows that, at present, under 5s have the lowest confirmed case rate of all age groups: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-flu-and-covid-19-surveillance-reports.

Early years settings have been open to all children since 1 June 2020 and there is no evidence that the early years sector has contributed to a rise in COVID-19 cases within the community. Early modelling evidence from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies showed that early years provision had a smaller relative impact on transmission rate when modelled with both primary schools and secondary schools.

Guidance for early years settings is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-early-years-and-childcare-closures.