Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to the National School Breakfast Programme, what selection process his Department plans to implement in the event that all of the schools that qualified for funding apply.
Up to £24 million will be available to extend our support for school breakfast clubs until 2023, to make sure thousands of children in disadvantaged areas have a healthy start to the day.
Our new breakfast clubs programme will target schools which are eligible through our criteria for disadvantage, prioritising schools in Opportunity Areas. For the new programme, we are aiming to provide funding to around 2,500 schools as a minimum.
This approach to eligibility is per the current programme, which is supporting up to 2,450 schools. We have worked with the current supplier to recruit these schools, and not all schools eligible for breakfast provision have signed up to receive support.
It is unlikely that all eligible schools will sign up, because many already have breakfast clubs in place that are funded through other sources, and some choose not to offer a breakfast club.