Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, for the opportunity to update the Senedd on the position of the Welsh childcare and play sector and our childcare offer for Wales. I want to start this statement by saying a big 'thank you' and to acknowledge the exceptional way in which childcare and play providers across Wales have responded to the events of recent months. I'm sure Members would agree they deserve our heartfelt thanks for the invaluable contribution they have made and that they continue to make.

The period since March has been challenging for the sector. Even in the national lockdown earlier this year, we did not require the closure of childcare settings. It was, however, necessary to limit the number of children on site. Those settings that remained open fulfilled an essential role, enabling our key workers to undertake their critical roles. I was struck by the resolve and flexibility of so many of our providers, pulling out all the stops to ensure that they remained open. However, remaining open was not an option for all settings, and, at our lowest point, about 1,940 providers closed their doors. This represents over half of all registered childcare provision in Wales. However, today, things are looking more promising, with only around 428 settings remaining closed. And what we must remember is that, even without a pandemic, we would normally see some settings close for a range of reasons.

Fortunately, we were able to release the restrictions around childcare from 22 June. As of this week, around 1,527 of those settings that closed have reopened, which means that 88 per cent of registered providers overall are now open across Wales. However, in August we conducted a short survey of settings that were open, and that showed that most settings were expecting a 30 per cent reduction in attendance. For small settings in particular, that represents a significant reduction in demand. Our main focus now needs to be on supporting and building a sustainable sector for the future. Our approach over the coming months will be varied, including support for settings, support for the workforce and support for parents, providing them with the reassurance they need to return to childcare and the many advantages it brings to their children.

In April I made the difficult decision to suspend the childcare offer to new applications. At that point it was the right thing to do and allowed us to redirect some of the funding for the offer to help support the fight against the virus in a more direct and meaningful way. And through our coronavirus childcare assistance scheme, we supported over 9,600 children of critical workers, allowing their parents to continue their essential work, and cared for over 900 vulnerable children. Whilst the coronavirus childcare assistance scheme was a necessary and vital intervention that helped deal with the immediate crisis, it was always a priority for the Government to reinstate the childcare offer as soon as practicably possible. I'm extremely pleased that, since August, we have been able to reopen the offer.

We worked very closely with local authorities to ensure applications from parents were managed in a phased way. This has meant that parents who missed out on the offer in the summer term had their applications assessed first, with local authorities moving on quickly to deal with applications from new parents. And I want to thank local authorities for the way that they worked tirelessly to support the coronavirus childcare assistance scheme, and for working with us to bring back the offer. We couldn't have done any of this without them.

Reinstating the offer is a key part of our recovery plan. Not only does the offer provide much-needed security of funding for providers, but it helps thousands of parents, especially mothers, who seem to have been particularly negatively impacted by recent months. There were around 14,600 children accessing the offer in January and it's anticipated that around 8,000 to 9,000 children will take up the offer in the autumn term, which is approximately 75 per cent to 85 per cent of the usual take-up for autumn. Our Flying Start services have also restarted across Wales, and I am committed to completing the review of extending the offer to parents in education and training.

Alongside this, we have introduced the childcare provider grant. Although most childcare providers would have been able to access some form of Government support during the pandemic, we set up the provider grant, which allows settings to claim up to £5,000 towards their costs, to help any who were not able to access the wider business support schemes. The initial weeks of the provider grant have now started and take-up has been slower than we'd hoped, but there is still some time to go and we are working with local authorities, Cwlwm and Play Wales to further promote the grant and offer assistance in completing the application, where needed. All registered full-day care providers are also eligible for a 100 per cent business rates relief exemption until March 2022.

The workforce plan that was published in December 2017 sets out our vision to develop a highly skilled childcare, play and early years workforce here in Wales, making it a profession and a career of choice. This is more important than ever, given recent events, and we will continue to work to see its aims implemented and strengthened, with training and upskilling programmes restarting. The childcare sector in Wales is a rich tapestry of different types of organisations, all with distinct operating models and particular challenges. We must support the whole sector if we are to ensure that there is choice for families and appropriate support for all of our children, and, to that end, I'm also aiming to complete our ministerial review of play to support our thinking as we go forwards.

Deputy Presiding Officer, this Government is committed to tackling in-work poverty, to helping parents into work by removing childcare as a barrier to work, and to ensuring that childcare and play work becomes a profession that is valued here in Wales for the enormous contribution it makes towards nurturing and developing the future citizens of Wales. Thank you for the opportunity to update Members.