Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what estimate they have made of how many primary schools have spare capacity to accommodate three and four year-old children of parents entitled to the new 30 hours free childcare allowance.

Primary schools are an important provider of places for the current funded entitlement of 15 hours, with almost 297,000 three and four-year-olds benefiting from funded early education places in primary schools in January 2014. This is 94% all of three-year-olds and 99% of all four-year-olds. Schools have a track record of creating capacity by re-arranging their existing nursery provision, as we have seen where they have expanded their nurseries or worked in partnership with other providers, including for the delivery of funded two-year-old places.

The decision whether or not to make these sorts of changes is a choice for schools to make, but we would encourage them to consider establishing or expanding nursery provision, either directly by the school or in partnership with a third party. We will be working closely with schools and other providers to understand more about their capacity and what approaches might work best in their setting.