NATIONAL SCHOOL BREAKFAST PROGRAMME

That this House commends the progress achieved to date by the National School Breakfast Programme which has, with funding from the Department for Education, partnered with over 1775 schools to provide nutritious breakfasts to an estimated 280,000 children each school day; notes with concern that current funding for the National School Breakfast Programme will end in March 2020; notes that the Programme is funded by a proportion of the revenue raised by the sugar tax levy which continues to generate income; recognises that hungry children miss out on valuable hours of learning, contributing to an educational attainment gap between pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers; acknowledges that as many as 1.8 million children are at risk of starting the school day too hungry to learn; acknowledges the Education Endowment Fund and Institute for Fiscal Studies’ findings that children in schools with a free breakfast provision will achieve an additional two months progress in reading and maths over a year, compared with children in schools with no breakfast provision; acknowledges reports from teachers that free breakfast provision improves pupils punctuality, alertness, concentration, behaviour, and attendance; and calls on the Government to make an early decision to continue funding for the Programme with at least £12 million per year and extend the Programme further using more of the revenue raised by the sugar tax levy so that the Programme can reach more disadvantaged children across England.