Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of nursery availability on parents' ability to return to work when claiming Universal Credit in West Dorset constituency.

It is the department’s ambition that all families have access to high quality, affordable and flexible early education and care, giving every child the best start in life and delivering on our Plan for Change. In 2025/26 alone, we plan to provide over £8 billion for the early years entitlements, which is an additional £2 billion, as we roll out the expansion of the entitlements. We will also work with the Department for Work and Pensions to make it easier for parents to use Universal Credit Childcare and the funded hours together.

The department has regular contact with each local authority in England about its sufficiency of childcare and any issues it faces. Where local authorities report sufficiency challenges, we discuss what action can be taken to address those issues and, where needed, support the local authority with any specific requirements through our childcare sufficiency support contract.