Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of the provision of emergency funding to the early years and nursery sector to cover (a) the maintenance of the funding calculation based on pre-covid 2019-20 place numbers and (b) other additional costs incurred due to covid-19 to ensure the viability of the sector post-outbreak.

We recognise childcare attendance has been affected by the COVID-19 outbreak, however, we saw attendance rise over the autumn term from 482,000 on 10 September 2020 to 759,000 on 17 December 2020. On 17 December, the government therefore announced a return to funding early years settings on the basis of attendance. Under these arrangements, local authorities should ensure that providers are not penalised for short-term absences of children, for example sickness, arriving late or leaving early, or a family emergency through withdrawing funding, but use their discretion where absence is recurring or for extended periods taking into account the reason for the absence and the impact on the provider.

While early years settings remain open for all children, we know that attendance was lower in the first week of January 2021 than it was before Christmas. We are looking at the attendance data and will continue to keep the funding position under review.

On 17 December, the government announced a return to funding early years settings on the basis of attendance, as measured by the January 2021 census. The Early Years census count will go ahead this week as expected and the census guidance is unchanged. To support local authorities we have issued some technical advice on how that guidance can be applied this year.

In summary, where a child is reasonably expected to attend Early Years provision, and that provision is made available to them by the provider, their expected hours should be recorded in the Early Years Census. This means that children should be counted who, were it not for the impact of coronavirus on either their own personal circumstances or on the operation of their early years setting, would be attending early years provision. This includes children who have previously attended the provision and children who were expected to start attending the provision in January 2021.

Where the provider is temporarily closed due to circumstances such as staff infections or isolation periods, they should return their expected levels of provision for census week. Where the provider chooses not to offer the entitlements – i.e. to close, or only offer a limited provision to children of key workers - then then they should not make a return for a child who is not being offered a place.

We stay in regular contact with the early years sector and have heard from them already on this subject. We publish regular official statistics on attendance in early years settings here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/attendance-in-education-and-early-years-settings-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak. We will be closely monitoring both parental take-up of places and the capacity and responses of providers and will keep under constant review whether further action is needed.

The private nursery sector could not claim for specific costs incurred due to increased premises costs needed to keep schools open during school holidays, or over and above the cost of existing cleaning arrangements as a result of confirmed or suspected coronavirus cases in the same way as primary and secondary schools.

The Covid Workforce Fund aims to support schools and colleges to remain open, even when they face significant workforce pressures caused by COVID-19.

The early years sector has benefitted from the continuation of early years entitlement funding during the during the summer and autumn terms in 2020, and as private nurseries typically rely on private income for a significant proportion of their income, they are able to also access support to furlough their staff via the Coronavirus Jobs Retention Scheme (CJRS). As long as the staff meet the other criteria for the scheme, private nurseries are able to also access support to furlough their staff via the CJRS if they have experienced a drop in either their income from parents or government. Eligible nurseries can also benefit from a business rates holiday and can access the business loans as set out by my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer.