Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to ensure that Ofsted inspections are (a) standardised and (b) include safe sleep practice.

Ofsted will receive additional funding as part of the Best Start in Life Strategy to enhance the quality and consistency of early years inspections, and we will fund Ofsted to move towards inspecting all providers at least once every four years, in parity with schools.

Ofsted’s inspectors for early years inspections are early years professionals with relevant knowledge of safer sleep practice and are capable of assessing a provider’s adherence to the relevant suitability and safer sleeping requirements in the early years foundation stage (EYFS). In September 2025 we strengthened the safeguarding requirements in the EYFS statutory framework, including:

• Amendments to promote safer recruitment.
• Creation of new requirements for providers to follow up if a child is absent for a prolonged period of time.
• A new safer eating section.
• A safeguarding training annex and a requirement for safeguarding training to be repeated every two years.
• New requirements to support whistleblowing.