Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many and what proportion of the total number of children eligible for the early years pupil premium are accessing (a) all of and (b) part of the 30 hours free childcare entitlement; and if he will provide a breakdown of each of those four figures by (i) three and (ii) four year olds.

There were 74,488 children aged three and 33,353 children aged four, who were registered to receive the 15 hours free childcare entitlements and who were also in receipt of Early Years Pupil Premium (EYPP) funding in January 2021. Children are only eligible for EYPP funding if they are aged three or four and are also registered to receive the 15 hours free childcare entitlement; as such all children eligible for EYPP will also be registered to receive 15 hours free childcare.

Children aged two are not eligible for EYPP. However, some of the same criteria are used to determine whether two-year-olds are eligible to access 15 hours of free childcare. There were 124,543 children aged two who were registered to receive this entitlement in January 2021. This figure includes children eligible because of high level special educational needs or disability, being looked after or adopted from care, or having no recourse to public funds, in addition to those meeting economic criteria similar to those used for EYPP eligibility. The percentage of eligible two year olds registered to receive 15 hours free childcare was 62% in January 2021.

All figures above refer to England only and are derived from January 2021 data published in the Education provision: children under 5 years of age publication, available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/education-provision-children-under-5. The next release containing January 2022 data is scheduled to be published at the end of June 2022.

With regard to figures on the number of three and four year olds registered to receive the 30 hours free childcare entitlements and who are also in receipt of the EYPP are not readily available.