Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the additional number of two-year-olds who will access funded childcare hours from April 2024; and what is this number as a percentage of all two-year-old children.

The department recently released a costings information note, with information on estimated take-up rates for funded childcare hours. The costings information note can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-education-entitlements-and-funding. The department estimates that take-up would be between around 30% and 90%, with variation substantially driven by parents’ likelihood of using formal childcare depending on the age of their child. This file also contains data on population projections by age of child.

For the purposes of calculating costs, the department has estimated a take-up rate for each age group of eligible children:

• Take-up by two-year-olds would be at the higher end of the range, based on take up of existing entitlements offers for three- and four-year-olds (around 75%)
• Take-up by one-year-olds would be in the middle of this range (around 60%)
• Take-up by children aged 9-12 months would be at lower end of the range, based on low use of formal childcare (around 35%)

The department separately publishes information on eligibility for entitlements through the ‘Education provision: children under 5 years of age’ (section five on Data Quality) document, which can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/methodology/education-provision-children-under-5-years-of-age-methodology. This document includes the department’s eligibility estimate for the existing three- and four-year-old extended hours for working parents’ entitlement. Take-up rates and numbers for existing entitlements are also detailed at this link annually from the department’s spring censuses.