Breakfast clubs 'are excuse to keep two-child benefit cap'

The government today trumpets 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.

- Toby Helm Political Editor

Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, announced the first 750 schools that will become "early adopters" of breakfast clubs, saying that 67,000 of the 180,000 pupils set to benefit come from the most disadvantaged areas of England.

The policy is now being sold not only as a way to improve school attendance, educational performance and attainment, but also as a primary lever for reducing poverty.

One of Labour's general election pledges was to roll out the plan across the whole of England during its first term in office, to drive up standards and improve opportunities for all.