To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how much his Department has spent on the universal early years entitlement of 12.5 hours a week in each year since 2001; and if he will make a statement. (206147)

Local authority expenditure on under fives in the maintained, private, voluntary and independent sectors is shown in the following table.

The estimated £4 billion spent on the free entitlement in 2007-08 is both the largest amount ever spent by a Government on this age group and is sufficient to deliver high-quality early learning and care for all eligible three and four-year-olds in a range of settings.

To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how much has been allocated for all childcare settings to provide the early years foundation stage; and how much and what proportion of this budget has been allocated to information technology. (210025)

The available expenditure on nursery provision (including private/voluntary/independent settings, maintained nurseries and nursery units at maintained primaries) was estimated at £4,027 million in 2007-08 (figure from the 2008 Departmental Report, Table 8.5). It is not possible to break down the information technology funding by phase, but the total figure within the schools budget in 2007-08 was estimated at £617 million (DAR 2008 Table 8.3). This figure is capital funding and is separate from the revenue funding quoted above.