Express columnist and Conservative councillor Mieka Smiles says that one Labour Government measure is unnecessary – but taxpayers are being forced to pay for it.
Conservative councillor and Express columnist Mieka Smiles takes aim at free breakfast clubs (Image: Getty)
A lot has gone on since Keir Starmer took the keys to No. 10. And a lot of it hasn’t exactly been rainbows and butterflies. In fact, Starmer and co. seem to have lurched from one disaster to another – with last week’s car crash Budget being a case in point.
How Rachel Reeves’ blood must have run cold as she was alerted to the fact that not just had there been (another) leak of her Budget, but the entire thing had been announced before she even made it to the Dispatch Box.
Labour vowed to end the chaos when they came into power, but, like Sky journalist Beth Rigby recently put to Starmer in a brutal interview, they are the chaos. You’d expect the PM to have been prepped within an inch of his life to talk in the interview about the positive things his Government had achieved since entering office. You know, like lowering national debt, boosting productivity, getting a grip on the ballooning benefits bill. But no. Top of his list? More free childcare and… breakfast clubs. Yes, that’s right – the extension of free breakfasts that he plans to roll out to every state primary school.
Now, let me be absolutely clear: I do support helping to feed children when the help is actually needed. Free school meals for children who meet the financial criteria are an example of a well-thought-out and targeted policy. But universal breakfast clubs on the taxpayer’s tab defy any logic. And, even at the risk of being dubbed Mieka the Breakfast Snatcher, I’m going there.
News flash: not all children need free breakfasts. Beyond the eyewatering £315million estimate for a full rollout (that The Institute for Fiscal Studies has questioned will be enough) it’s the creepy nanny state mentality that really gets my goat. The Department for Education released a video on social media platform X, asking parents what they would do with the extra time provided by the free breakfast clubs.
“I would go to the coffee shop with all the other mums,” said one. Another, quite unbelievably, said: “You’re rushing, you forget if they’ve eaten, so it gives them great stability.”
I’m sorry, but why on earth are taxpayers subsidising this lunacy? It’s just like the bizarre teeth brushing in classrooms and the much-trumpeted removal of the two-child benefit cap, announced in Rachel Reeves’ Budget last week. These policies don’t lift people up, they cushion people from any personal responsibility, which will only harm future generations. Tory MP Suella Braverman called out the video as an “awful advert” saying “as the size of the state expands, so does the culture of dependency”.
If you choose to have children, you shouldn’t expect the State to feed them breakfast, brush their teeth or raise them for you!
