As we announced in December 2020, we intend to fund local authorities for the 2021 spring term using the January 2021 census. If attendance rises after the census is taken, we will top-up local authority figures, up to 85% of their January 2020 census level, where a local authority can provide data of increased attendance during the Spring term. On 18 March 2021, we published guidance for local authorities setting out the process for accessing the top-up for the 2021 spring term and how they will be funded for the financial year 2021-22.

Given the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on childcare attendance levels, we announced that we are temporarily varying our approach to funding the entitlements for the 2021-22 financial year, to give local authorities and providers more protection over their funding income as we go through these uncertain times. Therefore, for the 2021-22 financial year, we intend to fund all local authorities on a termly attendance count that local authorities will need to provide to the department. The general principles set out in published guidance on how to conduct the usual annual early years January census should also be applied for these termly counts, to ensure consistency with the usual approaches taken in a normal early years funding year. In that, the existing census guidance already sets out how to record children who are temporarily absent (for example, due to sickness or on holiday), or if a provider is temporarily closed.

The technical guidance to local authorities is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-funding-spring-2021-and-financial-year-2021-to-2022.

Discussions are taking place with the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee about additional funding for costs incurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of its ongoing assessment of COVID-19 costs incurred by the sector, the Government will take account of the £370 million increased advance payments paid to community pharmacies.

The support package for community pharmacy also included general COVID-19 business support, funding for Bank Holiday openings, social distancing measures and the medicine delivery service to shielded patients, free personal protective equipment and non-monetary support including the removal of some administrative tasks, flexibility in opening hours and the delayed introduction of new services.

The national living wage will increase by 19p per hour from April 2021.

We have uplifted the funding rates by 8p an hour for 2 year olds and, for the vast majority of areas, by 6p an hour for 3 year olds and 4 year olds.

Ratio requirements for adults working with children in early years settings are set out in the Early Years Foundation Stage framework. Early years settings make their own decisions on how to deploy staff within the ratios, ensuring that children’s needs are met.

The funding rate increase is higher than the costs that nurseries may face from the April 2021 uplift to the national living wage.

The government continues to work closely with local authorities, the third sector and charity partners to understand the needs of local communities. It will keep under review any further measures that are necessary to support vulnerable children and young people. The government has supported vulnerable children throughout the COVID-19 outbreak including through keeping education settings open and ensuring the continuation of children’s social care and early help services. We are investing £1.7 billion in a comprehensive education recovery programme to help students recover from lost learning as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak and we have appointed Sir Kevan Collins, as Education Recovery Commissioner, to advise on plans to support pupils to make up their learning over the course of this Parliament. We are also investing £220 million in the Holiday Activities and Food programme, which will be expanded across England this year, and a £79 million boost to children and young people's mental health support.

The Government is providing approximately £60 million in supplementary funding for Maintained Nursery Schools this year (2020-21), and we are re-confirming that funding, nationally, in 2021-22.

This is on top of the £44 million the Government is providing for early years education in 2021-22 to increase the hourly rate paid to childcare providers for the government’s free hours offers. Prior to this, SR19 confirmed an additional £66 million increase to EY funding.

The Government recognises the significant disruption the necessary actions to combat Covid-19 are having on sectors such as leisure and the fitness industry.

During this difficult time the Treasury has worked intensively with employers, delivery partners, industry groups, and other government departments to understand the long-term impact of Covid-19 on all key areas of the economy and continues to do so.

The Government has already announced considerable and unprecedented support for businesses and individuals. Businesses forced to close can claim grants of up to £3,000 per month (worth over £1 billion per month) through the Local Restrictions Support Grants (Closed). Any business in England forced to close due to national or local restrictions can claim grants, via their local authority, of up to £3,000 per month, per business premises, depending on rateable value.

In addition, on 5th January, the Government announced an extra £4.6 billion to protect jobs and support affected businesses as restrictions tightened. Businesses forced to close can claim a one-off grant of up to £9,000. Local authorities in England have also been awarded an additional £500 million discretionary funding to support their local businesses. This builds on the £1.1 billion discretionary funding (worth £20 per head of population) which local authorities in England have already received to support their local economies and help businesses that have been impacted.

The government has introduced the £100 million National Leisure Recovery Fund, to support publicly owned leisure facilities through this crisis.

The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) has been extended until the end of April. This provides a substantial grant for employers to cover 80% of the wages of their employees. As of 13 December, CJRS has supported 9.9 million jobs at the cost of approximately £46.4bn.

We will continue to monitor the impact of government support on public services, businesses, individuals and sectors, including the leisure, gyms and fitness sector, as we respond to this pandemic. The upcoming Budget will be an opportunity to take stock of our wider support and set out the next stage of our economic response to the pandemic; however it must be recognised that it will not be possible to preserve every job or business indefinitely, nor stand in the way of the economy adapting and people finding new jobs or starting new businesses.

Ensuring sufficient childcare for families continues to be a government priority. This is why we have ensured that wraparound childcare settings have been able to remain open for vulnerable children and children of critical workers during the current national lockdown, in line with those children eligible to attend school for onsite provision. We have also updated our guidance to support providers to operate as safely as possible: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-early-years-and-childcare-closures/coronavirus-covid-19-early-years-and-childcare-closures.

We recognise that the wraparound childcare sector, like many sectors, is facing unprecedented financial pressures, as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. It is for this reason that the government has made a range of financial packages of support available for businesses to access throughout the COVID-19 outbreak. This includes tax relief, business loans or cash grants through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS), and the Self-Employed Support Scheme (SEISS), as well as a £594 million discretionary fund for councils and the devolved administrations to support local businesses that may not be eligible for other support during the current national lockdown.

We are also still encouraging all local authorities to consider using local grants that have been made available to them during the COVID-19 outbreak to support the wraparound childcare sector in their areas and to safeguard sufficient childcare provision for all families. This includes the expanded Holiday Activities and Food Programme, which comprises a £220 million fund to be delivered through grants to local authorities. This programme will give children eligible for free school meals the option to join a free holiday-time programme that provides healthy food and enriching activities during the summer, Christmas and Easter holidays in 2021.

The government recognises the significant cultural and economic value of cinemas, and has supported them through both sector-specific and economy-wide measures.

More than 200 independent cinemas have so far received funding of £16 million in the first round of the £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund. This funding is being administered by the BFI on behalf of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, as part of the biggest ever single investment in this country’s cultural sectors. Grants have been awarded to cinema sites in every corner of the country, with cinemas outside London benefitting from 78% of funding to date. Further to this, we announced in December that cinemas will be able to apply for a share of an additional £14 million in grants as part of the second round of the Culture Recovery Fund. This second round closed on 1 February, and will provide support for cinemas into the next financial year. Cinemas have also been eligible to apply to the second round of Arts Council England’s Repayable Finance scheme, with a total of £100 million available.

Recognising that cinemas need content, during this crisis the Government’s Film and TV Production Restart Scheme has helped keep the cameras rolling at the other end of the screen supply chain. The £500 million scheme, which opened for applications in October 2020, has assured over 100 productions that they will be supported if future losses are incurred due to Covid-19 and provided the confidence they need to restart filming.

In addition, most cinemas have been and are continuing to benefit from economy-wide measures including the VAT cut on tickets and concessions, a business rates holiday, access to Bounce Back Loans, the extended Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, and Local Restrictions Support Grants.

Together these measures are providing a comprehensive package of support to the cinema industry to support it through the pandemic.

Schools are funded for the provision of free school meals as part of their national funding formula allocations. The funding system is lagged and based on pupil information from the previous year. As such, increases in free school meal eligibility leads to increased funding the following year. The lagged funding system gives schools certainty over their budgets, as they know how much funding they will receive in advance.

During the period of national lockdown, schools should continue to provide meal options for all pupils who are in school. Meals should be available free of charge to all infant pupils and pupils who are eligible for benefits-related free school meals who are in school.

Schools should also continue to provide free school meal support to pupils who are eligible for benefits related free school meals and who are learning from home. Extra funding will be provided to support schools to provide food parcels or meals to eligible children.

Schools are free to decide the best approach for their free school meal pupils. They can provide lunch parcels, locally arranged vouchers, or they can use the national voucher scheme with Edenred, which re-opened on 18 January 2021. Schools have begun ordering and families have already begun redeeming supermarket vouchers.

Edenred reported that, by the end of 25 January 2021, 34,400 orders had been placed by schools and more than £26 million of eCodes had already been redeemed into supermarket gift cards for families.

Further details are set out in the guidance, available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-free-school-meals-guidance/covid-19-free-school-meals-guidance-for-schools.

See, Hear, Respond was set up as a short-term response to address the specific support needs of children and young people due to the sudden and unpredictable impact of the COVID-19 outbreak and national restrictions. The government recognises the vital role that it has played in supporting over 45,000 vulnerable children, young people and families.

The current contract is due to end at the end of March 2021. The government continues to work closely with local authorities, the third sector and charity partners to understand the needs of local communities. It will keep under review any further measures that are necessary to support vulnerable children and young people.

Universities and private accommodation providers are autonomous and responsible for setting their own rent agreements. The government plays no direct role in the provision of student accommodation.

This has been a very difficult time for students, and we encourage universities and accommodation providers to review their accommodation policies to ensure they are fair, transparent and have the best interests of students at heart.

We recognise that in these exceptional circumstances some students may face financial hardship. The Department for Education has worked with the Office for Students to clarify that providers are able to draw on existing funds, worth around £256 million for academic year 2020/21, towards hardship support. The government is making available up to a further £20 million on a one-off basis to support those that need it most, particularly disadvantaged students. As my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister, said on the 7 January 2021, we are considering what more we can do to provide further support to students.

Maintenance loans are available as a contribution towards a student’s living costs while attending university. The system targets the most living cost support at those from the lowest income families, who need it most.

Students undertaking courses that would normally require attendance on-site, but for which learning has moved either fully or partially online due to the COVID-19 outbreak, will qualify for living costs support in the 2020/21 academic year as they would ordinarily, provided they continue to engage with their higher education provider. This also applies when the student is prevented from attending the course physically and is required to study online due to shielding.

If students have concerns about their accommodation fees, they should first raise their concerns with their accommodation provider. If their concerns remain unresolved, and their higher education provider is involved in the provision of the accommodation, students at providers in England or Wales can ask the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education to consider their complaint.

If a student thinks their accommodation provider is treating them unfairly, they can raise a complaint under the accommodation codes of practice as long as their provider is a code member. The codes can be found at: https://www.thesac.org.uk/, https://www.unipol.org.uk/the-code/how-to-complain and https://www.rla.org.uk/about/nrla-code-of-practice.shtml.

Whilst we recognise childcare attendance has been affected by the COVID-19 outbreak, we saw attendance rise over the autumn term from 482,000 on 10 September 2020 to 759,000 on 17 December 2020. On 17 December 2020, the government therefore announced a return to funding early years settings on the basis on attendance. In line with the existing and unchanged statutory guidance local authorities should ensure that providers are not penalised for short-term absences of children, for example sickness, arriving late or leaving early, or a family emergency through withdrawing funding, but use their discretion where absence is recurring or for extended periods, taking into account the reason for the absence and the impact on the provider.

We will fund local authorities in the 2021 spring term based on their January 2021 census. If attendance rises after the census is taken, we will top-up councils to up to 85% of their January 2020 census level, where a local authority can provide evidence for increased attendance during the spring term. This will give local authorities additional financial confidence to pay providers for increasing attendance later in the spring term.

For more info on use of Early Years Dedicated Schools Grant in Spring 2021, please see here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/use-of-free-early-education-entitlements-funding-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak/use-of-free-early-education-entitlements-funding-during-coronavirus-covid-19.

The early years sector has benefitted from the continuation of early years entitlement funding during the during the Summer and Autumn terms in 2020, and providers have been able to furlough their staff via the Coronavirus Jobs Retention Scheme. As long as the staff meet the other criteria for the scheme, schools and early years providers are able to furlough their staff if they have experienced a drop in either their income from parents or government. Eligible nurseries can also benefit from a business rates holiday and can access the business loans as set out by my right hon. Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

We stay in regular contact with the early years sector, including on this subject. We will be closely monitoring both parental take-up of places and the capacity and responses of providers.

On 4 January, my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister announced that early years provision would remain open for children during the national lockdown in England. The early years entitlements exist to provide high quality education and care for pre-school children. Early education enables very young children to develop the core building blocks of communication and social skills. The government does not consider remote learning to be an effective way of delivering high quality early education for very young children, and nor can young children be cared for online.

For the purposes of the Early Years Census 2021, local authorities have been asked to count the hours of children who have been offered a place in early years provision and who are reasonably expected to attend the provision. This means children who, were it not for the impact of coronavirus on either their own personal circumstances or on the operation of their Early Years setting, would be attending Early Years provision. This does not include children who have been offered remote learning as an alternative to a place in early years provision.

The Department for Education made an award of a contract to Edenred pursuant to Regulation 32(2)(c) Public Contracts Regulations 2015 to provide extremely urgent deliverables as part of the response to the COVID-19 outbreak. The contract was let as a direct award using the terms of an existing Crown Commercial Service framework. The Department does not comment on the commercial arrangements of third parties but can confirm that we have only paid for the face value of goods delivered (in this case, vouchers).

Our supplier, Edenred, reported that over £380 million worth of voucher codes had been redeemed into supermarket eGift cards by schools and families through the scheme as of 19 August 2020.

As the Opposition spokesperson knows very well, because I called her last week, we are providing that advice to settings to ensure that it is very clear that if parents are keeping their children at home because they are concerned about covid, settings can still count those children for the census, provided they are open. If they choose to close, they can furlough their staff using the other Government schemes. We will continue to monitor the situation very closely to see whether further support is needed.

The Government is committed to supporting all groups in society with the challenges caused by COVID-19. That is why the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme is only one element of a comprehensive package of support for individuals.

The Government has implemented a £20 per week increase to the Universal Credit standard allowance and Working Tax Credit basic element; a relaxation of the Universal Credit minimum income floor; and measures to make Statutory Sick Pay and new style Employment and Support Allowance easier to access. The Government has also invested over £900 million in increasing the Local Housing Allowance rates for Housing Benefit and Universal Credit, which means more than 1.5 million households who rent privately will gain an average of £600 per year. In addition, the Government has given local authorities a further £500 million to support the most vulnerable people in our society, who may struggle to meet their council tax payments this year.

The most recent data available from the DCMS Provisional Sector Economic Estimates relating to 2018 shows that the Cultural Sector in London contributed £23,111m GVA, of which the London Arts Sub-Sector contributed £4,525m

The Government’s unprecedented £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund has now surpassed the £1 billion milestone. Over £500million in recovery grants have been made to over 3000 arts and heritage organisations in England helping to support 75,000 jobs with over £300m awarded to London through grants and repayable finance awards.

DCMS has produced and regularly updates the Performing Arts Guidance to help performing arts organisations, venue operators and participants understand how to make their workplace COVID-Secure so that they can work and take part in the performing arts safely when and where permitted. The guidance applies to both professional and non-professional activity. This includes general guidance for rehearsals, training and pre-production. It also includes advice for managing audience and performances including staging and capacity, social distancing and the Rule of 6, ticketing and payments, cloakrooms, managing people flow, staging arrival times and seating arrangements, ventilation, wearing of face masks and carrying out risk assessments.

DCMS has also convened a Venues Steering Group which includes representatives from leading sector organisations as well as Public Health England and other experts to develop an action plan for maximizing activity under Stage 4 and for how we safely proceed to stage 5 with fuller audiences.

The Government’s unprecedented £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund has now surpassed the £1 billion milestone. Over £500million in recovery grants have been made to almost 3000 arts and heritage organisations in England helping to support 75,000 jobs and over £100million in capital grants.Organisations receiving grants from the CRF include Shakespeare’s Globe, Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, The Old Vic, Manchester Royal Exchange and Opera North.

Additionally, a second round of funding was announced on 11 December, which utilises the remaining Culture Recovery Fund funding. There will be over £300m available in grants delivered by DCMS’ delivery partners, and £100m of repayable finance delivered by Arts Council England specifically.

A great education is fundamental to the success of children, their families, and our communities, as well as the success of our country. That is why we are giving schools the largest cash boost in a decade, which will give every school more money for every child. We are increasing core schools funding by £2.6 billion in the 2020/21 financial year, including an additional £780 million for children with complex special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), compared to the 2019/20 financial year. In the 2021/22 financial year, our funding for high needs will increase by a further £730 million, or 10%, bringing the total high needs budget to over £8 billion. High needs funding is allocated to local authorities through the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG).

We do not prescribe in detail how schools should spend their funding allocations, nor how local authorities should allocate their high needs funding, but local authorities and schools have statutory duties under the Children and Families Act (2014) to support children and young people with SEND. Local authorities must also spend DSG funding in line with the conditions of grant. Further information on these conditions is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dedicated-schools-grant-dsg-2020-to-2021/dsg-conditions-of-grant-2020-to-2021.

We have published the ‘Dedicated Schools Grant technical note 2020 to 2021’ which explains how the DSG allocations for this year are calculated, and the ‘schools and high needs national funding formula allocation tables for 2020/21’ show the allocations for each local authority, and the values used to calculate the final allocation. These are available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dedicated-schools-grant-dsg-2020-to-2021/dsg-technical-note-2020-to-2021 and https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-funding-formula-tables-for-schools-and-high-needs-2020-to-2021. The funding formula includes a range of proxies to reflect the underlying level of need in each local area, as well as factors to reflect the local SEND system.

A great education is fundamental to the success of children, their families, and our communities, as well as the success of our country. That is why we are giving schools the largest cash boost in a decade, which will give every school more money for every child. We are increasing core schools funding by £2.6 billion in the 2020/21 financial year, including an additional £780 million for children with complex special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), compared to the 2019/20 financial year. In the 2021/22 financial year, our funding for high needs will increase by a further £730 million, or 10%, bringing the total high needs budget to over £8 billion. High needs funding is allocated to local authorities through the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG).

We do not prescribe in detail how schools should spend their funding allocations, nor how local authorities should allocate their high needs funding, but local authorities and schools have statutory duties under the Children and Families Act (2014) to support children and young people with SEND. Local authorities must also spend DSG funding in line with the conditions of grant. Further information on these conditions is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dedicated-schools-grant-dsg-2020-to-2021/dsg-conditions-of-grant-2020-to-2021.

We have published the ‘Dedicated Schools Grant technical note 2020 to 2021’ which explains how the DSG allocations for this year are calculated, and the ‘schools and high needs national funding formula allocation tables for 2020/21’ show the allocations for each local authority, and the values used to calculate the final allocation. These are available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dedicated-schools-grant-dsg-2020-to-2021/dsg-technical-note-2020-to-2021 and https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-funding-formula-tables-for-schools-and-high-needs-2020-to-2021. The funding formula includes a range of proxies to reflect the underlying level of need in each local area, as well as factors to reflect the local SEND system.