Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the importance of high quality early years education and care to (1) the ability of parents to contribute to national productivity, and (2) the potential for later economic productivity of those children benefiting from such provision.

Evidence from the Effective Pre-school, Primary and Secondary Education (EPPSE) study shows that good quality early education has a lasting impact on children’s attainment and later outcomes. Children attending high quality pre-school had improved academic attainment at age 16, and were more likely to go onto A-levels and attend university. Attending some pre-school compared with not attending pre-school was predicted to result in an increase in lifetime earnings. We continue to build our evidence in this area through the £6 million longitudinal Study of Early Education and Development (SEED).

Wider research shows the impact of early years education and care on parents’ employment and, therefore, their ability to contribute to national productivity. For example, research from the Institute of Fiscal Studies in 2014 found that the expansion of funded provision led to a rise in maternal employment rate for those whose youngest child was three years old (see: Brewer, M et al. (2014) ‘The impact of free, universal pre-school education on maternal labour supply’).