Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she is taking steps to increase the number of childcare places in the London Borough of Bexley.

Under Section 6 of the Childcare Act 2006, local authorities are responsible for ensuring that the provision of childcare is sufficient to meet the requirements of parents in their area. Part B of the early education and childcare statutory guidance for local authorities highlights that local authorities are required to report annually to elected council members on how they are meeting their duty to secure sufficient childcare, and to make this report available and accessible to parents.

The department has regular contact with each local authority in England, including Bexley, about their sufficiency of childcare and any issues that they are facing.

Where local authorities report sufficiency challenges, the department discusses what action the local authority is taking to address those issues and, where needed, the department will support the local authority with any specific requirements through its childcare sufficiency support contract.

A commitment has been made to ensure that 30 hours of funded childcare is available for every child over the age of 9 months with working parents by September 2025.

More parents are going to be able to return to work while balancing childcare commitments. This is thanks to the government’s £4 billion per year expansion of childcare in England. This is the largest expansion of funded childcare ever and will remove barriers to work for nearly half a million parents with a child under three in England.

Local authorities have received £12 million of delivery support funding for this financial year to support with meeting programme and delivery costs associated with rolling out the expanded early years entitlements. Bexley will receive money from this fund. Bexley Local Authority are due to receive £716,747.72 to enable them to deliver additional wraparound places.

The department is also allocating £100 million for local areas to use to make sure childcare settings in their areas have enough physical space. This funding is anticipated to add thousands of new places across the country. More detail on the £100 million capital funding, including allocation amounts to local authorities and accompanying guidance, will be published shortly.