Thousands of primary school children to get free breakfasts from April, Rachel Reeves announces

Thousands of children across the country will get access to free breakfast clubs from April, Rachel Reeves has confirmed.

During her speech at the Labour Party conference on Monday, the Chancellor said up to 750 schools in England would be offered the chance to take part in the first stage of the process next year. 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."

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The plan was backed by £7 million of funding and the Department for Education would work collaboratively with schools, businesses and charities to test the delivery of the breakfast club programme ahead of the wider national rollout. A spokesperson 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.

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Campaigners said breakfast clubs alone would 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."