Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the potential implications for her policies of the results of polling commissioned by Save the Children, published in February 2017, on the majority of parents wanting the Government to ensure that every nursery in England has a qualified early years teacher.

The Department for Education will be publishing an early years workforce strategy in due course, which will seek to remove the barriers to attracting, retaining and developing staff. The strategy will include a focus on what government can do to help grow the graduate workforce.

We make early years initial teacher training places available to meet the demand from the market. Funding is available for training course fees, with additional funding for nursery employers to help them support graduates in their setting to become early years teachers. To encourage the best graduates into the early years workforce we provide bursaries to eligible trainees.