Breakfast Clubs: Early Adopters

Baroness D'Souza Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness D'Souza (CB)]

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.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

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.