Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to safeguard the future of nursery schools in the UK and ensure that they can continue to provide the education and social skills needed for early years development, whilst offering a safe environment for children.

Maintained nursery schools make a valuable contribution to improving the lives of some of our most disadvantaged children.

We are providing local authorities with supplementary funding of £55 million per year to enable them to maintain existing levels of nursery school funding at least to the end of this Parliament. Details of the funding can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-national-funding-formula-allocations-and-guidance

We have recently completed a data assurance exercise that will ensure that local authorities receive the correct amount of supplementary funding, and we will consult on the future of maintained nursery schools in due course.