Child Care (Hansard, 20 July 2001)

§ Caroline Flint
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what proportion of the first 1 million child care places provided under the National Childcare Strategy were taken up by under-fives using(a) daycare nurseries and (b) childminders. [4915]

§ Mr. Timms
The National Childcare Strategy has not reached a total of 1 million child care places yet. Since April 1997, 382,685 new child care places have been created. Of these, 132,538 have catered for under-fives. 82,298 of these were daycare places in day nurseries, pre-schools and playgroups¹ and 50,240 were with childminders.
¹Daycare is defined as child care of three and a half hours or more. It is not possible to break down the figures for new places to show those in nurseries only.

§ Caroline Flint
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what her Department's estimate is of the number of full-time child care places in the United Kingdom for children up to 5 years. [4912]

§ Mr. Timms
At the end of March 2000 the Survey of Children's Daycare Facilities in England showed that there were 264,200 places in day nurseries and 320,400 places with childminders¹. We do not have figures for the United Kingdom as a whole.
¹The childminding places cater for children aged 0–8. We are not able to separate childminding places to show only those places that cater for 0–5-year-olds. These figures do not include full-time places in pre-schools and playgroups, which traditionally provide care for less than three and a half hours a day but are increasingly expanding into daycare, because a breakdown is not available.

§ Caroline Flint
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what estimate has been made of the proportion of families that require full-time day care for one or more children at some point in their working life. [4913]

§ Mr. Timms
The Department does not have a figure for the demand by families for child care over their working life but it does have information on the use of day care.
758W
The Department commissioned a survey of parents' use of and demand for child care. This survey shows that 28 per cent. of parents had used some formal child care in the last week of the survey. The survey shows that 31 per cent. of parents who had used some child care in the last year said there had been times when they would have needed or liked more child care but they were unable to obtain it.