Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of whether the proposed increase in early years childcare provision could lead to a widening of the attainment gap.

Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.

The most recent Early Years Foundation Stage Profile results in 2022/23 found 67.2% of children had a good level of development, which is an increase of around 2 percentage points compared to the previous year. Additionally, the percentage of disadvantaged children with a good level of development had increased by 2.5 percentage points and the gap with their peers had narrowed by at least 0.5 percentage points.

The department has commissioned an independent evaluation of the childcare entitlements expansion, which will explore the effects of the expansion on children’s development. Results will be made available on GOV.UK in due course. This is in addition to the existing significant programme of monitoring that includes pulse surveys with early years providers, polling with parents and annual large-scale surveys of providers and parents. The department will also continue to use the existing body of evidence from studies such as the Study of Early Education and Development and Effective Pre-school, Primary and Secondary Education to inform its work.