Breakfast Clubs: Early Adopters

Baroness Blackstone Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blackstone (Lab)]

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?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

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.