Oral Answers to Questions

Catherine McKinnell Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton]

The whole point of the pupil premium is to give extra resources for schools that can be used exactly as they see fit for their own pupils. If a school wants to use a large or a small part of the pupil premium for that activity, that is entirely a matter for the head and the school.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

Learning outside the classroom includes encouraging healthy eating through breakfast clubs, but new research suggests that one in eight breakfast clubs closed this year and that half of those remaining are under threat. What would the Minister say to the chief executive of Greggs, which funds breakfast clubs for 7,000 disadvantaged children across the country, who recently questioned the coalition’s priorities and the fact that it is able to find £250 million to fund weekly bin collections but is unable to pledge support for the rising number of children coming into school hungry?

[Tim Loughton]

I was in Leeds recently, where I awarded on behalf of the Prime Minister a big society award to the founder of Magic Breakfast, which is a voluntary organisation providing breakfasts and doing some fantastic work—in that case, with a local bagel maker renowned in the city. It is providing fantastic breakfasts for the kids, and I was lucky to see this great job being done rather well. In other places like Liverpool, however, which is run by the Labour party, the decision has been taken to reduce some of the breakfast clubs. That is a matter for local authorities; other places are doing it well, and the hon. Lady should look at some of these innovative schemes rather than look to the Government to provide everything.