Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to support parents of primary-aged children with childcare outside of school hours.

In the Spring Budget 2023, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a transformative set of childcare reforms aimed at increasing labour market participation. This included the largest ever investment in childcare, including expansions of early years entitlements and wraparound childcare.

The government’s ambition for wraparound childcare is that, by 2026, all parents and carers of primary school-aged children who need it will be able to access term time childcare in their local area from 8am-6pm. This will help to ensure that parents have enough childcare to work full time, more hours and with flexible hours.

To support this ambition, the government announced that it will provide up to £289 million of start-up funding over two academic years from September 2024 to support local authorities and providers in England to introduce or expand childcare provision on either side of the school day, which parents of primary school-aged children will be able to pay to access.

This programme will focus on primary school-aged children from reception to year 6, Monday to Friday during term time. The department’s expectation is that all wraparound provision is 8am-6pm, enabling parents to work a full day with travel time, unless data shows that local demand is for different hours, for example reflecting local labour market patterns.

Parents should expect to see an expansion in the availability of wraparound care from September 2024, with every parent who needs it able to access term-time wraparound childcare by September 2026.