But Labour MPs said that while they strongly supported breakfast clubs, it was clear that the emphasis on the clubs helping to end child poverty was evidence of a wider initiative to “soften us up” to be told that the two-child benefit cap would remain.
The government is trumpeting its policy of introducing free breakfast clubs into all primary schools in England as key to its efforts to cut child poverty, as ministers appear to have ruled out meeting the estimated cost of £3bn a year to end the two-child cap on benefits.
Announcing the first 750 schools to join the pilot scheme, the Department for Education said that breakfast clubs had “an important role to play in the government’s commitment to remove the stain of child poverty”.
Paul Whiteman, general secretary at school leaders union NAHT, said the pilot scheme was welcome but concerns about funding needed to be addressed: “We have already heard from some school leaders who are worried that funding for the scheme will fall short of the cost of delivering it.
Last week The Observer reported that some headteachers of primary schools in England were declining to take part in the pilot schemes for breakfast clubs because they feared they would lose money by doing so.
