Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has made an estimate of the number of hours children under the age of two are likely to spend in a formal childcare due to the Government's free childcare provisions in (a) 2023, (b) 2024 and (c) 2025.

In the Government’s Spring Budget on 15 March 2023, the Chancellor announced transformative reforms to childcare for parents, children, the economy and women. By 2027/28, the department will expect to be spending in excess of £8 billion every year on free hours and early education, helping working families with their childcare costs. This represents the single biggest investment in childcare in England ever.

From April 2024, eligible working parents of 2-year-olds will be able to access 15 hours of free childcare per week (over 38 weeks a year) from the term after their 2nd birthday, benefitting parents of up to 285,000 children. This will be extended to eligible working parents of children aged 9 months and over from September 2024, benefitting up to 640,000 children in total. From September 2025, this will be extended to 30 hours of free childcare per week.

Childcare is a vital enabler for parents to work. The new offer for working parents will tackle this barrier by closing the gap between parental leave ending and the government’s current entitlement offers so that more parents, and especially women, are supported to enter work.

The department monitors the average hours of childcare used by children of different ages via the Childcare and Early Years Survey of Parents.

In January 2023, 88.5% of disadvantaged 2-year-olds registered for the 15-hour entitlement were taking up between 12.51 and 15 hours of funded childcare per week.