PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Primary School Breakfast Clubs: Impact - 9 December 2024 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

Breakfast clubs break down barriers to opportunity so that children are ready to learn. They are proven to boost attendance, attainment, wellbeing and behaviour, and they also provide essential childcare options for parents. In only a few days, hundreds of schools have applied to become early adopters because they know that these clubs can improve children’s life chances and, crucially, academic standards.

As a former youth worker and a former school governor, I know that this initiative will make a huge difference, and I have written to all the schools in my constituency encouraging them to apply. Will the Secretary of State please outline the next steps?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the work that he is undertaking in making his local schools aware of the opportunities that breakfast clubs present. The early adopters scheme will enable up to 750 participating schools to start providing them from April 2025 onwards. We have tripled investment in breakfast clubs following the Budget. Schools have until 20 December to apply for the scheme, and I would encourage many more to do so.

Thousands of schools are already participating in the national school breakfast club programme, including many special schools and secondary schools, but the clubs actually have a bigger effect on attendance. The Secretary of State has talked a great deal about breakfast clubs in primary schools, but what is the future for the existing clubs in those special and secondary schools?

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for the interest that I know—from his former roles—he takes in this issue. We are building on the existing programmes, expanding investment and opportunities, but I agree with him that we need to ensure that breakfast clubs are available to all children, including those with special educational needs and disabilities. To ensure that the roll-out is a success, some of the early adopters will be in special and alternative provision schools.

I welcome the decision to introduce breakfast clubs, which will have an amazing impact on pupils in my constituency and everywhere else. Will the Secretary of State tell us a little about the logistics of rolling out the programme throughout the country, and how quickly that can be done?

As I said, schools have until 20 December to apply to take part in the early adopters scheme. That is because we want to ensure that we establish the scheme, and understand the benefits and challenges, before we roll it out across the country. We are determined to get this right, and we will build on the early adopters to deliver universal free breakfast clubs in every primary school in England.

While the children’s wellbeing Bill proposes statutory breakfast programmes, research from the Food Foundation shows that such clubs are more likely to benefit wealthier families because of the convenience that they offer working parents. By contrast, offering children free school lunches is known to help iron out inequalities. Some 800,000 children in poverty are ineligible for free school meals, and more than 200,000 eligible children are not registered. Does the Secretary of State agree that expanding school lunches, and implementing auto-enrolment for free school meals for all children, would be an effective and equitable approach to tackling food insecurity and supporting our children’s health and academic performance?

The hon. Lady is right to identify the importance of ensuring that all our children have healthy, balanced and nutritious diets, including at school. However, she will know that the situation that this Government inherited from the previous Government means that we have had to take some very tough decisions. We will set out more in due course as we set out legislation that we promised in the King’s Speech. I slightly take issue with some of the evidence she points to, because the evidence on breakfast clubs demonstrates wider benefits for all children in attainment, wellbeing and overall performance.

I call the shadow Minister.

Because of the increase in national insurance, the Early Years Alliance is warning of a 20% increase in fees for early years parents, which affects nurseries and things like paid-for breakfast clubs. It says that the Budget will be a “recipe for total disaster”, with up to four in 10 early years providers closing unless drastic action is taken. As a first step towards averting that disaster, will the Secretary of State now agree to publish the Department’s estimate of how much the national insurance increase will cost early years providers? If she will not publish it, why not? Does the House not deserve to have this information?

I take the concerns of early years providers very seriously indeed, and we will set out in due course the funding rates and the approach that we are taking. The hon. Gentleman and the Conservative party are very keen to complain about and criticise the measures that we set out in the Budget, yet the Leader of the Opposition herself said that she would refuse to reverse them. They want all the benefits—the teachers, the breakfast clubs and rising standards—but they are not prepared to take the tough decisions that are necessary. As a former Treasury Minister, the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott), should know better, because she saw the scale of the fiscal inheritance that this Government inherited from her party.