Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of providing free childcare in school holidays for children of parents who have to work during school holidays.

This year, the government is again investing over £200 million in the Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme, with all local authorities in England delivering in the Easter, summer and Christmas holidays. The programme provides heathy meals, enriching activities and free childcare places to children from low-income families, benefiting their health, wellbeing and learning.

Last summer, the programme reached around 600,000 children across England, including over 475,000 children eligible for free school meals. Local authorities are responsible for the collection and assurance of data for their HAF programme. For 2023, we have added an additional requirement for every local authority to compile and publish a report on their HAF programme that covers how much HAF funding they receive and how it has been spent, along with how many children they’ve worked with in each holiday period, including breakdowns of the proportion of primary and secondary aged children and the number of children with special educational needs and disabilities or additional needs who have taken part in HAF. These reports are expected to be made available by local authorities no later than 30 June 2023.

Every HAF funded holiday club must provide at least 1 meal a day, which can be breakfast, lunch or an evening meal, and meals must meet school food standards as outlined at: http://www.schoolfoodplan.com/actions/school-food-standards/.

Every local authority should have in place a robust system to monitor HAF clubs they fund so that they can be assured that they meet the expected standards for the programme, and that they are providing a high quality and fun experience for children. Local authorities are asked to ensure that the offer of free holiday club provision is available for all children in receipt of benefits-related free school meals in their area, though attendance on the HAF programme is entirely voluntary.

As in previous years, local authorities have discretion to use up to 15% of their funding to provide free or subsidised holiday club places for children who are not in receipt of benefits-related FSM, but who the local authority believe could benefit from HAF, such as other vulnerable children. This could include, where appropriate, providing places at HAF clubs that support working families.