School breakfast clubs in England ‘will be used to justify keeping the two-child benefits cap’

As the education secretary announces the first primary schools to offer free breakfasts, Labour MPs question the commitment to fighting poverty

The government is trumpeting 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.

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.