Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many places will be required in September 2024 for the expanded childcare offer.

Ensuring that parents are able to access affordable and high quality childcare is a top priority. The department’s focus in reforming the system will be to ensure that there are greater and more equal opportunities to access early education for every family, and that there are greater opportunities for children to thrive and develop. As an initial step, the department is working to deliver new places in 3,000 nurseries through upgrading space in primary schools. This will help deliver the expansion in childcare entitlements and ensure that a variety of different types of provision are available that suit the needs of different parents.

Based on assumptions around take-up, likely hours used and whether children are new or existing users of childcare, there is estimated to be demand of an additional 15,000 places for September 2024.

Thousands of children, aged from nine months, will get government-funded childcare for the first time, allowing them to access 15 hours a week, over 38 weeks a year, of high quality, accessible childcare.

Further information on the underpinning assumptions behind these estimates was published in the 2023 Spring Budget Policy costing information note: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/66221ba8252f0d71cf757d2b/Spring_budget_2023_childcare_expansion_costing_note_information.pdf.

The department will continue to monitor the sufficiency of childcare provision through regular conversations with local authorities.