We recognise the vital role of maintained nursery schools in providing high quality education, particularly to disadvantaged children. This is why we have protected their supplementary funding, which is allocated through local authorities, until at least July 2022. This amounts to approximately £60 million per year nationally. (Partially accept) The Government has also recently published its review of the Early Years National Funding Formula (EYNFF) and this outlines a number of policy options for the maintained nursery school supplementary funding moving forward, including the permanent integration of the supplementary funding into the EYNFF. We consulted on these proposals and have been carefully considering the responses received ahead of taking further decisions. We will also consider these issues as part of the Spending Review (SR21) later this year, to determine the long-term future of funding for the sector. We recognise that the pandemic has brought particular challenges to all early years settings and we are continuing to support the sector during this period. On the Teachers’ Pay Grant and Teachers’ Pension Employer Contribution Grant, it is not possible to retrospectively fund maintained nursery schools through these grants because they are allocated via the National Funding Formula, to which maintained nursery schools are not subject. However, maintained nursery schools benefit from funding to support local government and additional grants for pay and pensions in a number of other ways, including significant increases in funding through the Local Government Finance Settlement and additional grant funding for employer contributions to the Teachers’ Pension Scheme and teachers’ pay awards. Additionally, they have been eligible for over £1 billion in funding streams to support children and young people catch up on lost learning due to the pandemic, including £153 million for early years children, and support through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and Early Years Private, Voluntary and Independent (PVI) Relief.