Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he has made an estimate of the affordability of childcare provision in Barnsley Central.

The department is committed to improving the cost, choice, and availability of childcare. We continue to look at ways to make childcare more affordable and to encourage families to use the government-funded support they are entitled to.

The department collects data on the main characteristics of childcare and early years provision in England, and fees data can be broken down to local authority level. Barnsley Central, which falls under Barnsley local authority, shows latest data on the average hourly fee band for childcare to be £4.75 for two-year-old children and £4.75 for three and four-year-old children.