Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment he has made of the effect of the covid-19 outbreak on the early years sector in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England; and what steps his Department is taking to support that sector in those areas.

We have spent over £3.5 billion in each of the past three years on early education entitlements, and the government continues to support families with their childcare costs. My right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced on 25 November 2020 a £44 million investment for 2021-22, for local authorities (including Coventry and all other local authorities in the West Midlands) to increase hourly rates paid to childcare providers for the government’s free childcare entitlement offers.

For 2021-22, we have increased the hourly funding rates for all local authorities by 8p an hour for the two-year-old entitlement and, for the vast majority of areas, by 6p an hour for the three- and four-year-old entitlement. This will pay for a rate increase that is higher than the costs nurseries may face from the uplift to the national living wage in April.

We have also increased the minimum funding floor, meaning no council can receive less than £4.44 per hour for the three- and four-year-old entitlements.

Further, we are varying our approach to funding the early years sector over this financial year, to give local authorities and providers better certainty over their funding income during a period of continued uncertainty due to the COVID-19 outbreak. For the Spring term 2021, we provided top-up funding for authorities which could show rising demand for our free early education entitlements during that term after a period of national lockdown. For the next three terms, we will fund each authority based on attendance data they provide to us for each term. This will ensure that our funding aligns with attendance, which should provide the very welcome reassurance for providers that funding for the entitlements will be commensurate with up-to-date data.

We have liaised closely with all local authorities during the COVID-19 outbreak to monitor attendance and sufficiency of supply of childcare. We have not seen a significant number of parents unable to secure a childcare place, in this term or since early year settings re-opened fully on 1 June 2020. Across England as a whole, including for Coventry North East, Coventry and throughout the West Midlands, in situations where parents have been unable to temporarily secure a childcare place, for example due to their usual setting being temporarily closed due to COVID-19, this has been able to be quickly resolved locally and local authorities (including Coventry) are not reporting significant concerns about sufficiency of supply issues, and have not reported any significant concerns at any point during the COVID-19 outbreak.

All early years settings continue to benefit from a range of business support packages to help support them during these unprecedented times. Throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, the government has been supporting the early years sector by continuing to have access to a range of business support packages, such as the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (where settings have experienced a drop in either their income from parents or government), Business Rates Relief Nurseries Discount and support from the Recovery Loan Scheme. Further information regarding these business support packages is available at: https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus/business-support.

We know that findings from the Childcare and Early Years Provider and COVID-19 survey have shown that in November and December 2020, 74% of group-based providers have made use of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme at any point.

We engage with local authorities on the accessibility of childcare on a regular basis and we continue to work with the early years sector to understand how they can best be supported to ensure that sufficient safe, appropriate, and affordable childcare is available for those returning to work now, and for all families who need it in the longer term.