Rachel Reeves committed £7m for the initial phase of the plan to introduce breakfast clubs for England’s primary schools during a speech at the Labour Conference.
Thousands of children will be able to access free breakfast clubs from next year under the plans set out by Ms Reeves as she sought to offer a more optimistic vision in her first Labour conference speech as chancellor.
Ms Reeves confirmed up to 750 schools in England will be offered the chance to take part in the first stage of the process.
She said: “I will judge my time in office a success if I know that at the end of it there are working-class kids from ordinary backgrounds who lead richer lives, their horizons expanded, and able to achieve and thrive in Britain today.
“That starts by taking the first steps on delivering another manifesto commitment, our promise, led by our Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, to introduce free breakfast clubs in every primary school across England.
“Today, I can announce that that will start in hundreds of schools for primary school-aged pupils from this April ahead of the national rollout, an investment in our young people, an investment in reducing child poverty, an investment in our economy.”
The Department for Education will work collaboratively with schools, businesses and charities to test the delivery of the breakfast club programme ahead of the wider national rollout.
When are the free breakfast clubs starting?
The scheme will start in 2025.
A spokesman for the Chancellor said the pilot would cover the period between April and July in the 2025 summer term before its expansion “as soon as possible”, potentially as early as September 2025 for a new school year.
Hundreds of state-funded primary schools will be invited to sign up to the ‘early adopter scheme’ from April 2025, with those teaching children from deprived areas likely to be chosen first.
The scheme will start with a trial of 750 primary schools from April and then, hopefully, be rolled out nationwide from September 2025.
Research by the End Child Poverty coalition found that rates of child poverty at or above 25 per cent are particularly prevalent in the North-East, North-West and West Midlands.
It also found high levels of inequality in London, where the constituency with the greatest child poverty rate – Bethnal Green and Stepney – is 19 percentage points higher than the average for the region.
The education department has said it will work with the education sector and local authorities to assess need and to work out how the breakfast clubs will be run.
More details are expected in the coming months.
What have campaigners said?
Campaigners have said breakfast clubs alone will not address child poverty.
Becca Lyon, head of UK child poverty at Save the Children UK, said: “If the Chancellor is serious about helping working-class kids from ordinary backgrounds lead richer lives, then they need to remove barriers like scrapping the two-child limit to Universal Credit.”
Child Poverty Action chief executive Alison Garnham said: “Breakfast clubs are a welcome start but meeting Labour’s ambition to end child poverty will need much more from this government.
“And, even with a pledge of no return to the past, austerity is the reality for more and more children as they’re hit by the two-child limit. The policy must be scrapped – and soon – if the Government is to deliver on its mission to reduce child poverty.”
