Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will extend the deadline for the national Childminder Start-Up Grant scheme.

Childminders are a key part of the early years workforce. They offer high quality and flexible early education and care that can be tailored to the needs of parents and children. Attracting childminders to join the workforce and retaining them is of vital importance.

The Childminder Start-up Grant scheme provides eligible new childminders, registered on or after 15 March 2023, with payments of up to £1,200 to help with the costs of setting up their business. The scheme was announced at the Spring Budget 2023 and was planned to run for two years.

To qualify for a grant, new childminders had to have completed their childminder registration with either Ofsted or a childminder agency by 31 March 2025, and they must apply to the grant scheme within two months of confirmation of their childminder registration.

Childminders provide more than 158,000 registered early years childcare places and the department is working with the sector to expand the number of childminders, and to make it easier for them to operate, including through increased funding rates. From 1 November 2024, there have also been new flexibilities for childminders to work with more people and spend more time working from non-domestic premises if they want to.