Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when he plans to announce the locations that will receive funding through the Holiday Activities and Food scheme in 2020.

School summer holidays can be a particularly difficult time for some families due to increased food and childcare costs and reduced incomes. That is why we have announced funding for the 2020 summer school holidays to again support children and their families with free access to holiday clubs across the country.

This follows our £9 million investment in 2019 which explored a model of local coordination of free holiday provision in 11 local authority areas.

We held a competitive bidding round for the summer 2020 fund which closed on 13 December. All bids were assessed against our published criteria and applicants needed to demonstrate that they could coordinate high-quality holiday clubs for children across their areas.

We will contact all bidders both successful and unsuccessful in the very near future.