Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 29 January 2018 to Question 123752, whether he plans to carry out a further review of childcare costs in England.

By 2019-20 we will be spending around £6 billion on childcare support – a record amount. This includes around £1 billion extra a year to deliver 30 hours of free childcare and fund the increase in hourly rates that we introduced in April 2017.

Our average funding rates are based on the department’s ‘Review of Childcare Costs’ which was described as “thorough and wide ranging” by the National Audit Office. The review looked at both current and future cost pressures.

We have recently commissioned new research to provide us with further robust and detailed data of the costs of delivering childcare for under five-year-olds using a representative sample of early years providers.