Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will publish data on the take-up of funded early years places by disadvantaged children by local authority.

The latest accredited official statistics release entitled ‘Funded early education and childcare’ for January 2025 was published on 17 July 2025. A minor correction was made on 31 July, as noted on the publication page.

Dataset 3 in this release shows national, regional and local authority level information on the number of children registered for funded early years provision according to whether the child was in receipt of the early years pupil premium. Dataset 3 is available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/funded-early-education-and-childcare.

Of all 3 and 4 year-olds who are registered for the universal entitlement, one third of those are in state-funded reception classes. Therefore, dataset 3 also includes figures for these children on free school meal eligibility.