Labour’s free breakfast clubs will make parents' lives easier and put more money in their pockets

14 years of underfunding in our public services under the Tories is no better demonstrated than through our schools, quite literally bursting at the seams.

Inside our schools, persistent absenteeism has meant hundreds of thousands of children are missing out on the school day. At the same time, the spiralling cost of childcare has prevented parents from working the jobs and hours they choose.

Many children who do turn up to school arrive hungry, or without the necessary reading and writing skills to succeed.

The Tories allowed ‘baked-in’ inequalities to take hold in our schools and let the attainment gap grow between the advantaged and the more disadvantaged.

This Labour Government is not wasting any time in identifying and fixing the problems that have been holding our children back after 14 years of mismanagement by successive Tory Governments.

Already we have breakfast clubs up and running in 750 schools across the country (including Cockburn Haigh Road Academy in the Wakefield & Rothwell constituency) helping 180,000 pupils.

This is just the start of our ambitious pledge to establish one in every single primary school.

Offering 30 minutes of free childcare, a healthy start for children and more breathing room for parents in the mornings, these breakfast clubs will provide the real support families need.

With the cost of everyday essentials stretching budgets, every penny counts, and this Government is determined to ease the burden on parents across the country.

Parents will be able to save around £450 per year if their child attends a breakfast club every day and it will free up 95 additional hours for parents who get to work, run errands or even just to have more time in the mornings to make things easier and less stressful.

Together with cheaper uniform costs and government-funded childcare, Labour are giving every child the best start in life.

This is just the start of our plan for change, to support children from all backgrounds to realise their potential.

We know that the Conservatives left a trail of devastation across education, but Labour are already taking measures across the system to repair the damage.

The School Rebuilding Programme will tackle the RAAC crisis which left many schools falling apart.

New attendance mentors, along with other policies, will tackle the endemic problem of non-attendance, which is holding back thousands of pupils, particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Labour is also recruiting 6,500 new teachers to tackle the recruitment gap in our state schools and make sure children have the teachers they need in key subjects, so they have every opportunity to succeed.

This government is providing the stability that parents have been crying out for and the support they desperately need.

These new breakfast clubs will support parents and support pupils and make sure that every child, no matter their background, is able to have the best start in life.

One of the primary missions of our government is to break down the barriers to opportunity - here, we are putting it into action.