Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what proportion of eligible (a) three and (b) four year olds have received an eligibility code for 30 hours of free childcare for the summer 2018 term.

The government set out in the 2015 Spending Review that we expect 390,000 children to be eligible for 30 hours free childcare. This includes both three and four year olds. This figure is a January snapshot and therefore is the mid-point, spring term estimate and an average across the year.

For the summer term, we said that we were aiming for 370,000 eligibility codes to be generated and we exceeded this target with 377,535 codes generated by 31 March. This was set out publically in the Management Information release on 12 April, which can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/30-hours-free-childcare-eligibility-codes-issued-and-validated.