Give UK nurseries emergency funding if they have to close down amid COVID-19
106,128 people signed this petition to the UK Parliament after it opened on 18 March 2020; it closed on 18 September 2020. The Government responded on 14 April 2020. MPs debated it in Westminster Hall on 25 June 2020.
The petition
The petition's creator is not named in the Petitions site's published record. Quoted in full from the UK Parliament petitions site.
Give UK nurseries emergency funding if they have to close down amid COVID-19
If nurseries are shut down in view of Covid-19, the Government should set up an emergency fund to ensure their survival and ensure that parents are not charged the full fee by the nurseries to keep children's places.
Being without childcare and having to pay nursery fees is a great concern for parents with small children. Nursery-based care is already extremely expensive, especially for children up to the age of 3. To expect parents to pay these fees up front to keep a place at the time when there is no accessible childcare (and for many parents no paid work), is unrealistic. We also need these nurseries to survive. When this is over, parents want their children to return to their nurseries.
The Government's response
The Government published its response on 14 April 2020; the petitions site lists the Department for Education as responsible. Its summary:
The Government has announced a comprehensive package of support for individuals and businesses which will directly benefit providers of childcare.
The opening 387 words of the 611-word response:
Hard-working parents across the country rely on childcare to help them balance their home and work commitments. We can rightly be proud of our childcare sector. 96% of childcare settings in England are now rated good or outstanding by Ofsted, an increase from 74% in 2012.
During the current Coronavirus outbreak, the Government wants to support nurseries, pre-schools and childminders during what must be a worrying and uncertain time.
We have asked childcare providers to continue to provide care for a limited number of children - children who are vulnerable, and children whose parents are critical to the coronavirus (COVID-19) response and cannot be safely cared for at home.
To help them do this, we have taken steps to directly support childcare providers in the current crisis.
We currently fund local authorities (LAs) to pay early education providers to offer up to 30 hours of early education per week, to qualifying families, for two, three and four-year-old children. We announced on 17 March that we will continue to pay this funding to LAs, which will provide reassurance for early years settings.
We have also put in place a significant package of financial support including a business rate holiday for many private providers and the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme to support workers. We expect nurseries to take a reasonable and proportionate approach to parents’ fees, in light of these unprecedented circumstances, and to communicate any arrangements clearly with them
Furthermore, childcare providers will benefit from the additional range of financial assistance measures we have introduced to support workers and businesses at this time.
We have announced that childcare providers will be eligible for a business rates holiday for one year. That means non-local authority providers of childcare (registered with Ofsted and providing EYFS) will pay no business rates in 2020 to 2021, from 1 April. This includes nurseries which are eligible for a charitable status relief – they will also pay no business rates at all in 2020-21 – and nurseries in receipt of small business rate relief or rural rate relief will benefit from small business grant funding of £10,000 (we also know that some settings operate from shared spaces which may now benefit from a 100% rates relief – and we strongly encourage those shared spaces to reflect any business rates saving in their rent charges).
Read the full response on the petitions site.
Where the signatures came from
Signatures came from 649 constituencies on the boundaries used until the 2024 general election. The largest number, 454, came from North Tyneside.
105,887 of the signatures were from the UK and 241 from elsewhere, by the location signers gave.
| Constituency | Signatures |
|---|---|
| North Tyneside | 454 |
| Corby | 427 |
| Tynemouth | 410 |
| Stratford-on-Avon | 396 |
| Basingstoke | 376 |
| Charnwood | 375 |
| Daventry | 365 |
| Kettering | 361 |
| Bosworth | 358 |
| Wythenshawe and Sale East | 356 |
| Region | Signatures |
|---|---|
| North West | 15,203 |
| South East | 15,183 |
| London | 12,229 |
| East of England | 9,436 |
| West Midlands | 9,280 |
| Yorkshire and The Humber | 9,234 |
| East Midlands | 9,207 |
| South West | 7,575 |
| Wales | 5,067 |
| North East | 4,010 |
| Scotland | 3,848 |
| Northern Ireland | 2,041 |
Debate in Parliament
MPs debated the petition in Westminster Hall on 25 June 2020. Read the debate in Hansard. House of Commons Library debate pack.
Source and receipt
- https://petition.parliament.uk/archived/petitions/301836.jsonUK Parliament Petitions API · read 2026-10-15 · SHA-256
fffa2703083f8d36… - The petition on petition.parliament.uk
The petition's words are its creator's and the response is the Government's; this site quotes both and gives no view on either. Signature counts can still change while a petition is open. To report an error, send a correction request.