Breakfast Clubs: Early Adopters

Statement

The following Statement was made in the House of Commons on Monday 24 February.

“With permission, I will make a Statement updating the House on the Government’s work to deliver free breakfast clubs and give every child the best start in life. This is a Government who act on their principles, deliver on their promises and drive the change that the country needs—change that is felt in our villages, towns and cities; change that will help families with the cost of living; and change that lifts the life chances of our children across the country. Change begins, and the biggest difference can be made, during those early years of life, and on into primary school, when the possibilities still stretch out.

Our action is urgent. Far too many children growing up in this country are held back by their background and denied the opportunity to go on to live happy and healthy lives, with the bad luck of a tough start weighing down their life chances. I will not stand by while those children are let down, because I believe that background should not mean destiny. Every single child deserves the very best start in life. To achieve and thrive at school is the right of all children.

Our manifesto outlined the action a Labour Government would take, and now, not yet eight months on from the election, we are delivering change in early years, change in primary schools and change in our country. I am delighted to update the House today that I have confirmed more than 750 schools as early adopters of our free breakfast club scheme. That is a promise made, and a promise kept. I will always act to protect working families’ livelihoods for children and their parents. It is for them that we are working tirelessly to deliver change, and it is for them that we will introduce free breakfast clubs in every primary school in this country. That is what we said we would do in our manifesto, and it is exactly what we are doing now.

Evidence shows why this matters so much. When schools introduce breakfast clubs, behaviour improves, attendance increases and attainment grows. That is no surprise when we are giving children the gift of a calm, welcoming start to the day, filled with friends, fun and food. It is the foundation for success that every child needs. This is about parents as well as children. Our new breakfast clubs will save families up to £450 a year, putting money directly back into parents’ pockets. That is why we are moving ahead with such energy and urgency, for children and for parents.

We are working to cement the clubs in legislation through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. Thousands of schools have applied to take part—an indication of overwhelming demand, and a spur to act. From this April, free breakfast clubs will begin to reach more than 180,000 children, and 70,000 pupils from schools in the most deprived parts of the country will be able to take part. Our early adopter schools are drawn from all kinds of places: cities and villages, north and south, east and west, affluent areas and more disadvantaged communities, big schools and smaller schools, mainstream schools, and special schools for children with special educational needs and disabilities. They include schools that have had a club before and those that have not; schools in which parents have had to pay for breakfast clubs in the past; and schools in which places are limited. That variety is key. It gives us a representative sample, so we can see what works, when, where, why and how, guided by the best evidence. That is how we will maximise the impact of the full rollout, bringing the benefits to children across the entire country.

We are taking a new approach—the challenges we face demand it. Breakfast clubs are one part, but we are going further and delivering more change for children. We are a mission-led Government, bringing meaningful change that is felt in our towns, our cities, and our communities, and I am proud to be leading our mission across government to break down the barriers to opportunity. In December, the Prime Minister unveiled our plan for change, and within that plan lies a vital milestone: a record proportion of children starting school ready to learn. That is crucial to closing the opportunity gap; all children arriving at school, ready to achieve and to thrive gets right to the heart of what it means to have the very best start in life.

I believe that delivering the best start in life is about families—parents and children. Breakfast clubs are one piece of the puzzle, but our action starts earlier in life, with great early education and childcare. It is something that I have spent many years in this House fighting for, but our childcare system has denied families. There are areas underserved with childcare places yet overwhelmed with demand; additional hours are offered nationally, but they are unavailable to families locally. The Opposition’s failure to keep their promises is the reason their party suffered such an emphatic defeat at the last election. A promise made but not acted on is not a promise at all, and a pledge without a plan to deliver is meaningless. That is why this Government are committed to delivering the entitlements that parents were promised before the last election. As a result of this Government’s hard work in making that pledge a reality, families can now access 15 hours of government-funded childcare a week from when their child is nine months old. From September, that will increase to 30 hours a week, matching the offer for three and four year-olds.

This Government have matched the pledge with a plan—a promise now backed by funding. In the next financial year alone, we will invest more than £8 billion in early years entitlements, an increase of more than £2 billion. On top of that is a new £75 million expansion grant to support the sector to provide the extra places and staff needed. We will use those 30 hours a week to combine childcare with great early education, and to give children the very best start in life. I want to double down on support for those children who need it most, in the areas that need it most. That is why I introduced the biggest ever uplift to the early years pupil premium. Childcare delivers for parents too. Just like breakfast clubs, the entitlements give parents power, choice and freedom over their lives, enabling them to go back to work if that is what they want to do. Work choices for parents, life chances for children—these are the steps we are taking and the promises we are keeping to support families.

I am determined to see the change through, but it is not a shot in the dark. The value of giving children the best start in life, and the power of spreading breakfast clubs across the country, is as clear as day and there for all to see if we know where to look. On the northern edge of St Helens sits Carr Mill Primary School. Children at Carr Mill can come in before the school day starts and eat breakfast with their friends in the school bistro. When they reach year 5, they are invited to become bistro leaders. Those young leaders help their peers to get a good breakfast, but they also learn about responsibility, caring for their classmates, and what it means to be part of a community. Parents see the change in their children, who are more confident and eager to go to school in the morning, and the younger ones look up to the bistro leaders.

It is not just the breakfast; it is the club too—helping children to settle, showing them that they belong in school, getting them ready to learn, and shaping not just the students of today but the citizens of tomorrow. It sets children up for success in school and in life, because that wider goal we are chasing of giving every child the best start in life means giving them the best start to their school day, each and every day, week after week, year after year. That is how we are breaking the link between background and success, and how we are delivering the change that parents voted for. That is how we are driving the change that the children of this country deserve. I commend this Statement to the House”.

12:02:00

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the Statement. The Government’s announcement in relation to breakfast clubs builds, obviously, on the approach of the previous Government, who ran a breakfast club programme from 2018. As we know, the vast majority of schools have a breakfast club; some are free and others charge a very low fee. Although I understand and absolutely respect that the Government are following through on their manifesto commitment to deliver breakfast clubs in primary schools, can the Minister clarify for the House what will happen to breakfast clubs in secondary schools funded by the previous Administration when that funding ends? Similarly, the Statement talked about the growth in childcare provision and the very significant funding going into that, which also builds on previous Conservative government policy. On the specifics of the scheme, the Minister will be aware that the Institute for Fiscal Studies report last year calculated that the £315 million announced by the Government for breakfast clubs would fund only the food element in all primary schools. As she knows, the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill proposes half an hour of childcare as well as breakfast. Can the Minister clarify what percentage of funding for the new breakfast clubs the Government will provide? What discussions have the Government had with schools on how to cover any shortfall? The Minister will have seen the report from the BBC yesterday of a small primary school in Lancashire that was part of the 750-school pilot phase and felt that it was not able to continue because, in its case, the funding did not cover its costs. Obviously, there has been wider commentary on this issue. Can she shed light on whether there is truth in the rumours that some schools were invited to take part in the pilot but were unable to and, if so, what the main reasons for that were? Can the Minister also confirm what percentage of schools in the new scheme had no breakfast club provision before this? I have tried to work out the Secretary of State’s assertion that the scheme will save families £450 a year. Maths is not my strongest suit but perhaps the Minister can help me. The Government, as I understand it, are funding 60p per child and 78p for those children in receipt of pupil premium. On my maths, £450 a year is about £2.30 per school day per child. Equally, if you put it the other way round, the government funding of £315 million spread across 4.5 million primary school children is about £70 a year. So can she set out what assumptions the Government are making that are behind the statement of the £450 saving to families? Finally, I wonder what assumptions the Government are making about the uptake of the scheme. A range of breakfast clubs already exist, of course, with and without additional childcare, and the Government have said they aim to learn from the pilot. Given that the vast majority of schools already have breakfast club provision, I am unclear what the Government need to learn from this pilot as opposed to what has gone before. All this matters, of course, because the Government’s choice—and it is a choice—is to fund breakfast for all children in primary school, including those whose parents were happy to pay for that breakfast and could do so without financial difficulty. It would be helpful for the House if the Minister could explain why.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for bringing this Statement to the Floor of the House even if it is a few days behind the Commons. The main thrust from my party is that we would rather have had the emphasis of this put into lunchtime meals, because, from the information I have received, about 40% of children who are eligible for this take it up, and anybody who has dealt with any child, or indeed rush-hour traffic, knows that you have more trouble getting children to school early in the day to get breakfast than you would do at lunchtime, when everybody is there. That is a fundamental flaw in the system of getting the nutrition in. The second flaw is what is in one of these breakfasts. If it is a sugar-laden breakfast cereal, you have the equivalent of a turkey twizzler in the morning. If it is just preserve on a bit of white bread, you will fill somebody up, but what is the nutritional guarantee? We have more experience in lunchtime meals—it is easier to get a balance in the meal. You will get a bigger bang for your buck. We also have the idea that people are used to eating that meal at lunchtime, so it will probably be slightly easier to get acceptance. If you are going to do this, what are the steps you will take to make sure it reaches more people? If you are going to put this money in, what is the benefit? I had prepared a slightly less extensive list of other questions, which the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, has got to before me. I will not weary the House by repeating them. The basic thing is the strategy to make sure that you get the best nutritional outcomes for those pupils and get to a higher percentage of the school population. I think we are entitled to know about that from the Government.

I thank noble Lords for their responses to the Statement made earlier this week by the Secretary of State, in which she spelled out very clearly the delivery plans for the Government’s commitment to deliver on their pledge to provide free breakfast clubs in every state-funded school with primary-age children. Let us reflect on what that means for those children. Evidence shows that, where schools run breakfast clubs, they report improvements to pupil’s behaviour, attendance and attainment. We want every school, child and family to have the chance of those benefits. In response to the noble Baroness, I think that is where this scheme builds on—in some ways it is fundamentally larger and more significant—the national breakfast club programme, which has previously been running. I know there will have been some enormously good work and pupils will have benefited, but it is not universal; it is not open to every child and every school, and it is not necessarily free. That is the difference in the proposals this Government are putting forward, which are being tested and will be evaluated and developed through the early adopters scheme the Secretary of State announced earlier this week. Some 750 schools, chosen from a whole range of different sizes, regions and levels of deprivation, will have the opportunity to test it. In response to the question about the continuation of the national breakfast club programme, we have committed to continue that until March 2026 for all those involved. After that, we will make decisions based on the spending review which, of course, is coming soon. The funding made available in the early adopters scheme is not just for food; it is for delivery, staff and food. Compared with the previous scheme, an average school would receive £24,000 as part of this scheme, which is £21,000 more than they would have received as part of the national breakfast club programme. We can see there the scale of the ambition of this breakfast clubs policy. On the case reported by the BBC, I can assure the noble Baroness that the BBC has now changed that story because it was wrong. There are 754 schools that have accepted and will be part of the early adopters scheme. There is a very small number the department is in discussion with about the details of those arrangements and making sure that they are able to continue. But the vast majority of the schools have taken up this very important opportunity. I think we will learn a lot from their experience about how we can ensure the national rollout. On the £450 figure, of course, not only are children being provided with breakfast, but they are also being provided with 30 minutes of free childcare as part of the breakfast scheme. A calculation of the value of 30 minutes of free childcare five days a week gives us a figure of up to £450 that could potentially be saved by parents. At a time when parents face considerable cost of living pressures, I am sure that this will be widely adopted and welcomed by parents. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, argued that this should be something that is happening at lunchtime as opposed to breakfast time. The Government already rightly spend a considerable amount of money on free school meals for those who are eligible, but what is being provided here is something universal for all children and free at the beginning of the day. Although it was some time ago for me, I had some sympathy with his picture of the parent in the morning struggling to get themselves and their children organised, and to get themselves to work and their children to school. However, I have to say that I think that struggle would be made easier by the idea that your child—I would not want anybody to think this ever happened to my children—is not being flung out of the car just before school to start the day in some disarray without having had a proper breakfast, or the time to settle into the school day in a way that is likely to make them calmer and more able to learn. The idea is that not only are we providing children with a breakfast, but we are also providing them with a calm start to the day, and we are providing their families with an additional 30 minutes of childcare first thing in the morning when it is often very needed in order for parents to get to work. On the point the noble Lord raised about the quality of the food, of course that is important. It is not true that school food standards only apply at lunchtime. They also apply to what will be served in breakfast clubs. That will ensure the quality of food available for those children. Breakfast clubs will ensure that every child, no matter their circumstances, can achieve their full potential by providing a supportive start to the day. I hope noble Lords will feel able to celebrate and support the scheme, and that we are all able to learn from the 750 early adopters how we can make this policy a real success.

12:16:00

My Lords, I welcome the innovation set out in the Statement, but I am sure that my noble friend the Minister will agree that it is of such importance that it should be properly evaluated. She mentioned evaluation in answer to one of the other questions, but it would be very helpful if she could tell the House what this evaluation and monitoring will consist of. There is some scepticism about take-up. If we are to succeed in reaching children living in poverty, it is important that we get to those children from very disadvantaged homes. That should be part of the evaluation. We also need to see what works and what does not. I would be grateful if my noble friend could put more flesh on what she said about evaluation and tell us when it might be completed. What steps will the Government then take to publicise it, so that local authorities and teachers can see it and officials and Ministers can move to make changes where they are needed?

My noble friend makes a very important point. It is at the heart of the early adopters scheme that, exactly as she says, we are able to see in different circumstances, with different types of schools and different needs of children—there are 50 special schools included in the 750—how the scheme works and therefore learn what more we need to do. In order to ensure that that happens, we will engage with academics to be able to evaluate it. We will make sure that there is peer-to-peer learning throughout the early adopters scheme. We will then want to reflect further on that evaluation to think about how we develop and roll out the scheme nationally. I am sure that I will be able to come back to this House with more information about what we have learned from the early adopters scheme and how we are intending to put that into operation to deliver the whole scheme.

My Lords, there are many different schemes in addition to the one the Government have just announced, which aim to provide breakfast for children in schools. How and through which government departments will these be co-ordinated? I ask this because I fear that there is a siloed approach to many of these schemes, which means that there will be gaps in the service provided If there were proper co-ordination through a department that is overtly in charge of these schemes, those gaps would not occur.

The noble Baroness is right that some good schemes are already in place but, to reiterate, none is universal or free. The breakfast club commitment that will be brought into law through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which will come to this House soon, will ensure that there are no gaps because there will be universal provision across all state-funded schools with primary-age pupils. It will be co-ordinated by the DfE, supported in some of the ways I have outlined. That is how we will get coherence and opportunity for everybody. To be fair, the noble Lord, Lord Addington, also pointed out the benefit of a universal scheme: it removes the stigma associated with schemes targeted specifically at some children.

My Lords, as someone whose daughter has just started breakfast club this week for the first time, I absolutely recognise their value for children and parents. The Minister was helpfully clear that the key difference in the Government’s approach is that it is about universality and a free-to-use service. She was also clear that the intention is for the funding to cover food and childcare, but there is a bit of a tension in those two statements. The IFS has been clear that the funding available is sufficient to cover all pupils if it covers only food costs, but that it would cover only about 60% of pupils if it covered food and childcare costs. While I welcome the Minister’s clarity that the intention is to cover food and childcare, it seems that the Government are missing about 40% of the funding needed to do so on a universal basis.

We do not believe that that is the case. With the considerable additional money that will go into schools—£24,000 for an average school—we believe that it is possible to cover all the elements I outlined. However, part of the reason for having the early adopter scheme is to be able to look at how these 750 schools are delivering and the extent to which the resources are right for them to do so, and to use that to plan for how and what resources are necessary to roll that out nationally.

My Lords, like many other noble Lords, I welcome this Statement. How will the Government ensure that breakfast clubs will be accessible to learners with special educational needs and disabilities who may usually be supported by one-to-one staff during the school day?

The right reverend Prelate makes an important point. As I suggested earlier, 50 of the 750 schools in the early adopter scheme are special schools and will receive a higher rate per pupil. They will give us the opportunity to see what design, level of staffing and type of organisation work best for those children. Equally, for schools that are not special schools, we are clear that these breakfast clubs need to be available for all children, including those with special educational needs. Being able to evaluate and look at the experience of the early adopters will help us ensure that we can deliver that.

My Lords, I once represented an area that had massive child poverty and where children had great needs. I have been told by children that it was not their turn to eat that night. I have been told by teachers that children stand by their friends to have the leftovers of their packed lunch because their family cannot provide food for them. Is there any flexibility in this scheme for children who find it almost impossible to get to a breakfast club because of its timing? Many of the children I once represented are in temporary accommodation and homes. They move around quite a lot and often find themselves having to access their school via three or four bus journeys, which makes it almost impossible for them to get in for an 8.30 am or 8.15 am breakfast club. If we could feed those children at break time to give them that extra start and boost, I am sure that would be most welcomed by teachers, parents and children. Is there flexibility to allow that to happen?

My noble friend makes an enormously important point from a position of considerable experience. The intention is that this club happens before school and provides childcare and food, but I take her point about children in particular need of food who find it particularly difficult to access it at that time. I will certainly take that away and discuss it with my right honourable friend the Secretary of State and Minister Morgan, who are responsible for this and, I am sure, will want to think carefully about it as part of the early adopter scheme.

My Lords, in the Statement, the Secretary of State asserted that there are areas underserved with childcare places yet overwhelmed with demand. I am very conscious that it is a statutory duty of local councils to provide sufficient childcare places, so I would be grateful if the Minister could write to me and place in the Library evidence that they are underserved. When I was in government and took this up with the Department for Education, I was assured that there was no evidence of childcare being underserved. Going further, I respectfully say to the Minister that the increase in employer national insurance will have a massive effect on childcare provision. I would be grateful if she could address whether any impact assessment has been done on that.

The last Government, rightly, had an objective of ensuring a considerable expansion of the availability of childcare entitlements. For example, there was an objective to increase the free entitlement, from this September, from 15 hours to 30 hours for all children from nine months to two years to match the entitlement delivered for three and four year-olds, which was ramped up last September. The problem was that, while there was a pledge, there was no plan to ensure that that provision was available in all parts of the country. That is why this Government have worked enormously hard, alongside local authorities, to make sure that that plan is in place and backed up by sufficient investment—£8 billion will be spent on childcare entitlements, which is a £2 billion increase in funding for entitlements compared to last year. It is also why we announced the £75 million expansion grant to support providers for children using the new entitlements, delivered through local authorities. On the national insurance contributions point, we will also make available £25 million for public sector providers of childcare via local authorities.

For the scheme to be successful, will the Minister address some of the concerns raised by teachers about which facilities will be made available—ideally, it should not be a classroom—and who will provide the care? I am sure she does not wish teachers to have to extend their already long working day.

The noble Baroness asks precisely some of the questions that the early adopter scheme will enable us to consider. I agree that teachers should not be extending their day to do this. Schools will find different ways to think about the staffing of these clubs, which we can look at in the early adopter scheme, and the accommodation in which to do it. I do not necessarily agree that it would not be appropriate to use a classroom; some schools might think that is the best way of doing it. There is the flexibility, if necessary, to use premises close to the school if that is more appropriate. However, those are very legitimate questions. The early adopter scheme will help us iron them out and find the best practice that I am sure schools will develop.

I want to follow up one of the questions that has already been put to my noble friend. I was very pleased to hear the number of SEN schools that are part of the project. Has the Minister had talks with transport authorities about getting children with SEN to their school earlier, in time to have the meal? We all know that those transport arrangements can go awry for all sorts of reasons; if talks are not being held, this might add extra complexity that could jeopardise the system.

My noble friend makes a very important point, which links to the point about children with turbulent lifestyles and how they can get to school on time. I will certainly take it back to my honourable friend Minister Morgan, to think about in the development of this. As he is very good at this sort of stuff, I am sure he has already thought about it, but I will make sure that he has.

My Lords, child obesity is one of the biggest problems that we face. I welcome the direction of travel and the opportunities this presents to address some of the long-standing problems. The Minister mentioned that school food standards would be applied. I see a wink from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, on the Benches opposite, given the number of interventions I made to her about the quality of school food standards being, in my view, inadequate, and the lack of enforcement. Can the Minister say what enforcement we will be applying? What standards will we have about the quality of the food? Is it not important that we spend more time looking at that, during this experimental period, to get the model right for the future?

My noble friend’s point about school food standards is a broader one and very important. I have previously told the House that, during my first time round in the Department for Education, I had the joy of being heavily lobbied to introduce school food standards in the first place, and I am very glad that we did. However, my noble friend makes the legitimate point that it is important that we keep those school food standards under review. There may be some learning from this scheme. I know that my colleagues in the department are keen to ensure that we have not only the right standards but the right ways of ensuring that they are delivered universally across schools. That is something that my noble friend will have the opportunity to badger me about in future months and years.

My Lords, there seems to be uniformity, in that everybody has to have breakfast. Why cannot some schools have breakfast and others have lunch? I always went to school in the morning and always had lunch at home, so I did not have breakfast. I do not think my concentration was affected at all. It is a matter of choice, and one that should be given to students.

Choice depends on there being provision. At the moment, there is not universal free provision of breakfast clubs for those children—probably their parents, frankly, at that age—who choose that to be the right thing for them. There will not be compulsory attendance at these breakfast clubs, but they will be available for anybody who wants them. I come back to the point about lunch, and reiterate that the Government are already rightly spending a considerable amount of money on providing free school meals at lunchtime for around 3.5 million children and young people. That will remain for those children.

My Lords, notwithstanding the results of the pilots, can the Minister tell us whether the department, or indeed head teachers, are encouraging children to stay at home to have breakfast, because it is quite valuable for the family unit? I realise that breakfast clubs are an idea, and I am interested to see what the pilots are doing, but this could be run in parallel.

There is enormous value in families being able to sit down and eat together. My personal experience is that breakfast is not necessarily the most likely time to bring fruitful conversation and calm family time. To reiterate my point, any family who wants to carry on having breakfast together as a family should of course be able to do so. The point is that, for those who want their children to have a smooth start to school, the opportunity to be part of the club for 30 minutes, and the chance to have their breakfast at school, this will be provided through the scheme.

My Lords, I want to follow up the point made by noble friend Lady Coffey on the impact of the national insurance rise on childcare providers. The Minister recognised the impact that rise will have on childcare provision by saying that public sector providers will get an additional £25 million to help meet those costs. However, a lot of childcare provision is in the private sector. How are those providers meant to meet the additional costs when the rates that the Government are paying for the provision of additional free hours are not going to change?

We could have a broader debate about why it has been necessary for this Government to introduce an increase in national insurance contributions, but let us not do that today—everybody knows why, given the legacy that we had. I talked about support for the expansion of childcare and the additional £75 million that is being provided as part of the expansion grant. That will be available to private sector and other childcare providers, to support them in developing the necessary childcare.

My Lords, I would be grateful if the Minister would place in the Library information about the local authorities that the Department for Education believes are underserved with childcare places. I asked the question earlier; I would appreciate it if that letter could be placed in the Library.

I will undertake to come back to the noble Baroness about that. The point I was making is that we are talking not only about the current situation, in which quite a few parents would suggest that they have not been able to access childcare provision at a cost they can afford. I do not think the noble Baroness is suggesting that every parent who wants to access childcare is able to do so. That is why I gave some credit to the previous Government for recognising that, along with the significance of childcare provision, and making the pledge to increase the free entitlements. The problem was that they did not put alongside that pledge a plan and investment. It has taken this Government to turn a promise into a reality.