Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much her Department is making available through the capital grants fund to support the delivery of the 30 hour free childcare entitlement.

The Department for Education has recently made £40m available through the Early Years Capital Fund. This was a bid round committed to creating new 30 hours places and was open to local authorities working in partnership with providers in their area (this may include providers that currently offer, or plan to offer, provision for 3 and 4-year olds). This one off bidding round closed at the end of August 2016 and we intend to publish outcomes in December 2016.

As part of our conditions, we expect those successful capital projects to be complete by August 2017.