Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many people have applied for an eligibility code for 30 hours of free childcare after the deadline in each of the terms to date.

During the first year of delivery, over 379,000 eligibility codes were successfully generated by parents applying through HM Revenue and Customs Childcare Service.

This breaks down across each of the terms as follows:

• Autumn term 2017 – 224,885 codes
• Spring term 2018 – 329,195 codes
• Summer term 2018 – 379,662 codes
• Autumn term 2018 – 254,136 codes

We publish termly management information releases showing the number of codes generated each term. The full publication, which shows local authority and regional level breakdowns, is available here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/30-hours-free-childcare-eligibility-codes-issued-and-validated.

The government has invested in strong and clear communications on the 30 hours offer, including a cross government website, Childcare Choices, which clearly sets out how and when a parent can access a place – www.childcarechoices.gov.uk. The department recognises that some applications may be delayed in the Childcare Service, that is why we have put in place a 14 day discretionary period for those parents who applied in time but received a code after the deadline, through no fault of their own.

Although the department holds data on the number of eligibility codes and when they were issued, we are unable to determine in which term a parent intends to take up a place, as this is dependent on circumstances and choices of the individual parent.