Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when he plans to respond to the research report, Evaluation of the first year of the national roll-out of 30 hours free childcare, commissioned by his Department and published on 11 September 2018.

As with the independent reports from the early delivery of 30 hours, the department will use evidence from the evaluation report to inform and support the future delivery of 30 hours free childcare.

More than 340,000 children benefitted from a 30 hours place throughout the first year of delivery. The year one evaluation found that 30 hours is making a real difference to family finances, with 78% of parents reporting they had more money to spend since taking up the offer.

We have just announced a year extension to our contract with the delivery contractor, Childcare Works. We will continue to work with them to disseminate the learning from the evaluation report to local authorities and childcare providers.