Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the average annual cost of childcare in the UK for a child aged (a) two and under, (b) three to four and (c) five and over; and if he will make a statement.

The Department for Education uses cost information from a number of independent surveys, such as the Family and Childcare Trust Annual Childcare Cost Survey 2014:
http://www.familyandchildcaretrust.org/childcare-costs-surveys

Their findings on the costs of childcare for children aged under two years old and those aged two years and over in England are shown in the tables below. The survey does not identify separately those aged five years and over.

It is encouraging to note that after 12 years of consistently rising prices, the costs of childcare in England have stabilised for the first time. In fact, once inflation is taken into account costs for the majority of parents have actually fallen. This means more parents are able to access affordable childcare and support their families.

But the Government is not complacent, and we are working to further increase childcare supply, which will further improve choice and affordability for parents:

a) More schools are opening their own nurseries for the first time, and we are establishing child-minder agencies to increase the number of child-minders available.
b) An increasing number of existing school nurseries are extending opening times from 8am to 6pm.
c) We are also making it easier for good nurseries to grow, by removing red-tape and planning restrictions.

The Government recently announced that the new Tax-Free Childcare scheme will be increased up to £2000 per child and extended to all children under 12 from September next year. This will help around 2 million families.

To help disadvantaged families, the Government has extended the 15 hours a week of funded early education already available for all three- and four-year-olds to include the most disadvantaged 20% of two-year-olds, and this will be extended further to 40% from September 2014.

The Early Years Pupil Premium (EYPP) will provide nurseries, schools and other providers of government funded early education with extra money for disadvantaged three- and four-year-olds. The EYPP will be £50 million in 2015-16 and the Department for Education will consult on the details of the programme shortly.

And all families in Universal Credit will be able to receive 85% support on childcare costs, up from 70% under the current working tax credit system. This change will see 300,000 working families getting more out of the money they earn. More and more families will find that it pays to get a job, from taking the first few shifts back at work, right up to working full-time.

Average weekly childcare costs for England

¹ Source: Family and Childcare Trust Annual Childcare Costs Survey, 2014