Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the (1) short-, and (2) long-term, financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on early years childcare providers in receipt of local authority funding who have restricted access to the Job Retention Scheme. [T]

Our immediate objective is to ensure that critical workers have the childcare that they need to do their jobs during this crisis and that vulnerable children have access to early years provision.

Maintaining a healthy childcare market in the longer term is also crucially important, which is why the government will continue to pay for free early years entitlement places from the Dedicated Schools Grant, as well as ensuring early years providers have access to other government support schemes for businesses whose operations have been severely affected by COVID-19.

Further information on the support available is included in the guidance ‘Actions for early years and childcare providers during the coronavirus outbreak’ which is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-early-years-and-childcare-closures/coronavirus-covid-19-early-years-and-childcare-closures.