Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the potential effect of the National School Breakfast Programme on the educational attainment of children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The department is investing up to £35 million in the National Schools Breakfast Programme to kick-start or improve sustainable breakfast clubs in up to 2,450 schools in disadvantaged areas. This includes the recently announced extension to the programme which will support up to an additional 650 schools with up to £11.8 million being invested in 2020-21.

An Education Endowment Foundation evaluation between 2014 and 2017 found that supporting schools to run a free of charge, universal breakfast club before school delivered an average of 2 months of additional progress for pupils in Key Stage 1. Breakfast club schools also saw an improvement in pupil behaviour and attendance.

We monitor management information from the programme on an ongoing basis and will review the effectiveness of the programme fully once it concludes.