Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of extending access to 30 free hours of childcare to working parents of all children over the age of nine months on (a) workforce participation and (b) the economy over the next two years from the go live date; and what estimate her Department has made of the annual cost to the public purse of this policy over the next two years from the go live date.

The department is determined to support as many families as possible with access to high-quality, affordable childcare, which is why in the Spring Budget 2023, my Right Hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced significant new investments to expand the free early education entitlements.

From September 2025, eligible working parents in England will be able to access 30 hours of childcare per week for 38 weeks of the year, from when their child is nine months old to when they start school.

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) expects the new 30 hours entitlement to gradually increase labour market participation of parents with young children. A 2016 study from the Institute for Fiscal Studies had found that expanding from part-time to full-time free childcare leads to significant increases in labour force participation and employment of mothers, which emerge immediately and grow over the months following entitlement.

By 2027/28, the OBR expects around 60,000 to enter employment and an equivalent effect from 1.5 million mothers of young children already in work increasing their hours.

The department will substantially uplift the hourly rate paid to local authorities to increase hourly funding rates paid to childcare providers, to deliver the existing free early education entitlements. We will provide £204 million of additional funding in 2023/24, increasing to £288 million by 2024/25.

This funding is in addition to the £4.1 billion that the government will provide by 2027/28 to facilitate the expansion of the new free hours offer, by which time we will expect to be spending in excess of £8 billion every year on free hours and early education. This represents the single biggest investment in childcare in England ever.