Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps is he taking to support early years providers to recruit and retain staff.

We are committed to supporting the early years sector to develop a workforce with the appropriate knowledge, skills and experience to deliver high quality early education and childcare, and to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak. That is why we have recently announced an additional £153 million in programmes to support workforce development, including increasing the number of places available for early years initial teacher training. We are also developing new early years training routes, including a new National Professional Qualification for Early Years Leadership and support for new apprenticeship routes for careers in the early years.