Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if the Government will cover the increased childcare costs for part-time (a) NHS and (b) emergency workers who return to work full-time during the covid-19 outbreak.

NHS staff, emergency workers and all other critical workers are central to our efforts in battling the COVID-19 outbreak. That is why our objective is to ensure that critical workers have the childcare that they need to do their jobs during this crisis. We expect early years and childcare settings, schools and local authorities to work together to ensure sufficient provision for children.

We have committed to continue providing free early education entitlement funding to local authorities throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, as well as ensuring early years providers have access to other government support schemes for businesses whose operations have been severely affected by COVID-19. Local authorities can use their free entitlement funding differently, redistributing it – in exceptional cases and in a clearly focussed and targeted way – in order to secure childcare for the children of critical workers, where their usual arrangements are no longer possible.

Further information is available in the guidance published at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-early-yearsand-childcare-closures.