Written Answers

Monday, 12 December 2005.

Armed Forces Bill

Lord Astor of Hever asked Her Majesty's Government:

Further to the evidence given by the Permanent Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs, to the House of Lords Constitution Committee on 9 November, what detailed consideration has been given by the Cabinet sub-committee on legislation to the Armed Forces Bill; what role did the Attorney-General play during that consideration; and what advice did he give. [HL2701]
 

Lord Bassam of Brighton: The Legislative Programme (LP) Cabinet sub-committee gave the Armed Forces Bill its full consideration before clearing it for introduction, as is the usual practice.

Childcare and Nursery Education

Lord Brookman asked Her Majesty's Government:

How many children aged (a) three; and (b) four received care and education in (i) maintained sector schools, and (ii) private and voluntary day nurseries in England and Wales in each academic year between 1995 and 2004. [HL2303]

Lord Adonis: The available information on childcare places and nursery education places in England is shown in the tables.

The available information on childcare places is shown in Tables 1 and 2.
 
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Table 1: number 1,2 of day care places for children under eight years of age by type of provider England: Position at 31 March each year, 1995–2001

Type of provider	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001
Day nurseries	161,500	178,300	193,800	223,000	247,700	264,200	285,100
Playgroups and pre-schools	410,600	397,700	383,700	383,600	347,200	353,100	330,200
Childminders	373,600	376,200	365,200	370,700	336,600	320,400	304,600
Out of school clubs	44,600	70,000	78,700	92,300	113,800	141,100	152,800
Holiday schemes 3	192,100	205,900	209,000	256,500	435,300	490,400	598,000

1 Rounded to the nearest 100 places.


2 Data Source: DfES Children's Day Care Facilities Survey.


3 From 1999, places were counted once for each school holiday. Before 1999, places were counted once each year.







 
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Table 2: number 1,2 of registered childcare places for children under eight years of age by type of care England: Position at 31 March each year, 2003 and 2004

Type of care	2003	2004
Full day care	381,600	456,300
Sessional day care	280,800	274,100
Childminders	300,900	319,700
Out of school day care	285,400	326,700
Creche day care	32,700	38,900
Total places	1,281,300	1,415,700

1 Rounded to the nearest 100 places.


2 Data Source: Ofsted.

The figures for 1997–2001 were derived from the Children's Day Care Facilities survey. The figures for 2003 and 2004 were derived from the Ofsted database of registered childcare providers. There are no figures for 2002.

With the introduction of the National Day Care Standards and the transfer of responsibilities for registration and inspection of childcare providers from local authority social service departments to Ofsted in September 2001, childcare places were classified according to the type of day care provided: full day care, sessional day care, childminder, out of school day care or creche day care. Ofsted has produced figures based on this classification on a quarterly basis from March 2003. Its latest figures were published on 27 October 2005 in its report Registered Childcare Providers and Places, 30 September 2005, which
 
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is available on its website, www.ofsted.gov.uk/publications.

All four year-olds have been entitled to a free early education place since 1998 and from April 2004 this entitlement was extended to all three year-olds. The free entitlement consists of a minimum of five two and a half hour sessions per week for 33 weeks of the year for six terms before statutory school age, which is the term following their fifth birthday.

Some local authorities may additionally offer subsidised childcare places but this information is not collected centrally.

Figures for January 2005 show that all four year-old children receive some form of free entitlement. The figure for three year-olds is 96 per cent. This covers all maintained, private, voluntary and independent providers and represents 535,100 three year-olds and 568,300 four-year olds.

The latest figures on early education places for three and four year-olds in England were published in Statistical First Release 43/2005 Provision for children under five years of age in England—January 2005 (final) in September, which is available on my department's website www.dfes.gov.uk/rsgateway/.

Changes in pupil figures may arise from changes to the underlying population in the local authority area and other factors. However, my department does not publish population figures for individual age cohorts at sub-national level because of the unreliability of the
 
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underlying population estimates. The Office for National Statistics publishes sub-national population estimates in five-year age bands.
 
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The available information on nursery education places is shown in Table 3.
 
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Table 3: number of free nursery education places 1 taken up three and four year olds England: Position in January each year

	3 year-olds				4 year-olds
Year	Maintained nursery and primary schools 2	other mtd and private, voluntary and independent providers	Total 3 year-olds	maintained nursery and primary schools 3	other mtd and private, voluntary and independent providers	Total 4-year olds
1997	214,200	..	214,200	..	..	4576,200
1998	222,000	..	222,000	..	..	4591,500
1999	225,700	..	225,700	..	..	4593,800
2000	229,900	540,300	270,200	..	..	4598,500
2001	226,600	5108,800	335,400	..	..	4589,300
2002	223,500	5184,700	408,200	477,700	4106,800	584,500
2003	218,700	5226,100	444,800	472,200	6109,600	581,800
2004	215,300	7246,200	461,500	461,100	8110,000	571,100
2005	214,300	7259,700	474,000	449,500	8104,400	553,900

1 Figures are rounded to the nearest 10 or 100 as appropriate.


2 Headcount of children aged three at 31 December in the previous calendar year from the Annual Schools' Census.


3 Headcount of children aged four at 31 December in the previous calendar year from the Annual Schools' Census.


4 Part-time equivalent number of children aged four at 31 December in the previous calendar year from the nursery education grant data collection exercise.


5 Part-time equivalent number of children aged three at 31 December in the previous calendar year from the nursery education grant data collection exercise.


6 Part-time equivalent number of children aged four at 31 December in the previous calendar year from the Early Years Census supplementary data collection exercise and the Annual Schools' Census.


7 Part-time equivalent number of children aged three at 31 December in the previous calendar year from the Early Years Census and the Annual Schools' Census.


8 Part-time equivalent number of children aged four at 31 December in the previous calendar year from the Early Years Census and the Annual Schools' Census.


.. Not available.







 
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Information for Wales is a matter for the Education Department of the Assembly for Wales.

Climate Change

Lord Dykes asked Her Majesty's Government:

Whether they will make representations to the United States Government to change their position on the global warming and climate change issues currently being discussed at the Montreal Conference. [HL2616]

Lord Bach: The UK Government are currently participating in the UNFCCC negotiations in Montreal. As part of this process UK Ministers will be holding discussions with other governments, including the US.

The UK Government believe that an international binding treaty including targets and timescales is an extremely important part of tackling climate change on a domestic and international level.