Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to support parents of primary-aged children with childcare outside of school hours.

The government is investing £289 million in a new wraparound childcare programme to support local authorities to work with primary schools and providers, including childminders, to set up and deliver more wraparound childcare before and after school in the term time. The government’s ambition is for all parents of primary school children who need it, to access childcare in their local area from 8am to 6pm. Successfully meeting this objective will go some way to ensuring that parents have enough childcare to work full time, more hours and more flexible hours.

Parents will still be expected to pay to access this provision, but support with costs will be available to eligible parents through Universal Credit childcare and Tax-Free Childcare.

Parents should expect to see an expansion in the availability of wraparound care from September 2024, with every parent who needs it able to access term-time wraparound childcare by September 2026.

The department is also providing over £200 million a year for the continuation of the Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme, with all local authorities in England delivering the programme in the Easter, summer and Christmas holidays. The HAF programme provides heathy meals, enriching activities and free childcare places to children from low-income families, benefiting their health, wellbeing and learning. In summer 2022, the programme reached around 600,000 children across England, including over 475,000 children eligible for free school meals across England. The department is working to ensure that the creation of new or expanded wraparound childcare provision can also help to support the delivery of sustainable holiday childcare provision, wherever possible.