Free breakfast clubs, home-school register and academy reforms supported by MPs

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson pledged to “break down the barriers to opportunity for each and every child”, as a series of measures to reform schools cleared the Commons.

The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill proposes to introduce free breakfast clubs, create a new register of all home-schooled children in England, and reform academies.

Ms Phillipson said the Bill will also ensure the “biggest reform of children’s social care in a generation”, by strengthening kinship care and fixing the broken care market.

The Bill was approved at third reading by 382 votes to 104, majority 278.

She added: “The action in the Bill cements in legislation the biggest reform of children’s social care in a generation.

“Keeping children with their families wherever it is safe to do so, supporting them to stay together, and strengthening kinship care so vulnerable children can live with the people they know and trust where they cannot continue to live with their parents.

“Fixing the broken care market so that when children cannot stay with their family, when kinship or foster care is not, sadly, an option, children have somewhere to live that is safe, secure and supportive.”

Ms Phillipson said the Bill will require permission to be granted for children to be home-educated, “to spot early warning signs and stop vulnerable children falling through the cracks”.

A new register of all home-schooled children in England will also be created, if the legislation becomes law, in a bid to bolster child protection

She added that children will be “ready to learn at the start of the school day” with the introduction of free breakfast clubs.

Shadow education minister Neil O’Brien accused the Government of trying to “dumb down the curriculum and lower standards further”.

He said Ms Phillipson has “no positive vision” as he bemoaned moves to no longer support some subjects for state school pupils, including the decision to end funding for the Latin Excellence Programme from this month.

The Bill would allow councils to open new schools which are not academies, and it would end the forced academisation of schools run by local authorities which are identified as a concern by Ofsted.

All teachers would be part of the same core pay and conditions framework, whether they work in a local authority-run school or an academy.

Mr O’Brien said: “It takes a wrecking ball to 40 years of cross-party reform of England’s schools and those reforms worked.

“There’s much, much more to do, of course, but England has risen up the international league tables even as Labour-run Wales has slumped down.”

Conservative former minister Graham Stuart also criticised the proposed changes to academies, and accused the Labour Party of a “total betrayal of the child, a total focus on the needs of the professional, their interests, their pay, their disparities, their conditions – nothing about the child, nothing about the standards of education”.

During the Bill’s report stage, Liberal Democrat education spokeswoman Munira Wilson called for all eligible children to be automatically enrolled for free school meals.

She said: “We strongly urge the Government to look at auto-enrolment, as well as increasing the eligibility threshold, so that we are feeding some of our poorest pupils, whether they are at primary or secondary school.”

Labour MP Kim Johnson called on the Government to go a step further as she said rolling out free school meals to all primary school children would be a “no-brainer”.

The Liverpool Riverside MP said: “No matter how bright a child is, or how amazing a teacher is, hungry children cannot learn.”

She added that “investing in our children’s future is a sensible financial choice”.

“If we choose today to spend the money, to roll out universal free school meals to children in primary schools, for every £1 we spend we generate £1.72 in core benefit returns, it’s a no-brainer,” Ms Johnson said.

MPs voted 313 to 77, majority 236, to reject the Liberal Democrat amendment designed to ensure eligible children are automatically enrolled for free school meals.

In a statement, Ms Wilson said: “It’s deeply disappointing to see Labour reject our plans to support families on the frontlines of the cost-of-living crisis by making sure no child goes hungry at school.”

MPs also voted 315 to 77, majority 238, to reject a Green Party amendment that sought to extend free school lunches to all primary school age children in state-funded schools.

Two Conservative amendments were also defeated, including one that would have removed a section of the Bill which repeals the duty to make an academy order in relation to a school causing concern.

The Bill will undergo further scrutiny in the House of Lords at a later date.