Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how her Department defines areas with the greatest sufficiency challenge in allocating resources from the capital grants fund.

The Government is committed to extending the free entitlement to childcare from 15 to 30 hours a week for working parents. We closed a £40m 30 hours capital bid round at the end of August 2016 to support the immediate need for new 30 hours places and will announce successful project awards in December 2016. This bid round was targeted at areas best able to evidence their need for 30 hours capital at a sub-local level, alongside value for money, performance, and deliverability outcomes criteria. Local authorities were invited to provide evidence of their sufficiency need for capital at a sub-local level, and bids were assessed on the basis of the evidence of sub-local variations in eligibility, parental take-up and capacity of providers.