Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many free early years education places were provided in (a) Suffolk, (b) Norfolk, (c) Essex and (d) Cambridgeshire in each year since 1997.

The attached spreadsheet provides the number of part time equivalent funded early education places from 1997 to 2014 and the number of children in receipt of some funded early education provision from 2008 to 2014. The variation between areas will reflect local demand.

The latest statistics can be found online at: www.gov.uk/government/statistics/provision-for-children-under-5-years-of-age-january-2014