Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD) I beg to move, That this House has
considered the provision of free school meals. It is a pleasure to
serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Betts. A child pretending
to eat out of an empty lunchbox because they do not qualify for
free school meals and do not want their friends to know that there
is no food at home; a child coming into school having not eaten
anything since lunch the day before, so hungry that they are
eating...Request free trial
(Twickenham) (LD)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the provision of free school
meals.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr
Betts.
A child pretending to eat out of an empty lunchbox because they
do not qualify for free school meals and do not want their
friends to know that there is no food at home; a child coming
into school having not eaten anything since lunch the day before,
so hungry that they are eating rubbers at school; and a child
hiding in the playground because they do not think they can get a
meal—all stories from schools in England today. This has to
stop.
I want every child at school to be happy, healthy and ready to
learn, and I doubt that anybody here would disagree on that
point. That is why it was the Liberal Democrats in government who
introduced free school meals for every infant
schoolchild—something of which I am incredibly proud. Since the
passage of the Children and Families Act 2014, it has been
required by law that free lunches are provided to all pupils in
reception, year 1 and year 2. That universal offering for all
infants has paid real dividends. A free school meal can be life
changing; its benefits are enormous.
Extending free school meals offers a triple whammy of benefits.
Free school meals save parents time and money, as parents save an
average of £10 a week on food and 50 minutes a week preparing it.
They improve educational outcomes; when free school meals for
children aged five to seven were piloted in east London and
Durham, pupils made around two months more progress in their SATs
results compared with those in the rest of the country. They help
children to eat more healthily: packed lunches are much more
likely than school meals to provide more calories from fat,
sodium and sugar. When free infant school meals were rolled out,
two in five headteachers told the Education Policy Institute that
healthy eating across the school had improved. Free school meals
are incredible, and we should give one to every child living in
poverty, whether in primary or secondary school, because hunger
and poverty do not stop at the age of 11.
Not only does a free school meal make sense for the reasons I
have already outlined; it also makes financial sense. An analysis
by PwC found that every £1 spent on free school meals for the
poorest children generates £1.38 in core benefits, including a
boost to the lifetime earnings of those children by almost £3
billion. Free school meals are a simple, unintrusive way of
ensuring that all children from low-income families have at least
one well-balanced, healthy, nutritious meal a day. The Government
know this, having already extended free school meals to children
without recourse to public funds during the pandemic, before
making that extension permanent. Even the Secretary of State for
Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, the right hon. Member for
Surrey Heath (), told a Conservative party
conference fringe event that he supported extending free school
meals to all children in poverty. Doing nothing is economically,
morally and politically unsustainable.
There has been some progress. My party and I welcomed the
extension of free school meals to every primary school child in
London by the Mayor of London in 2023. I am sure that all hon.
Members will agree that a proper analysis of that scheme and its
outcomes will be critical, and I look forward to seeing the
Education Endowment Foundation's report in due course. I hope
that that work will inform both this Government's and any future
Government's policymaking on free school meals.
The Mayor's commitment to free school meals is admirable, but it
would be remiss of me not to point out that earlier in this
Parliament the Labour party chose not to support extending free
school meals to all children in poverty. When the Liberal
Democrats tabled an amendment to the Schools Bill in the other
place to that effect, Labour peers sadly chose to abstain.
Although there was much in the Bill I disliked, I was
disappointed that we were not able to press the same amendment to
a vote in the Commons. I hope and expect that many hon. Members
here would have felt able to support it had we secured that
opportunity.
Regarding the Conservative record, I am sure that many hon.
Members will recall that Marcus Rashford had to drag this
Government kicking and screaming to provide free school meals in
the school holidays during covid. They may also recall some of
the comments that were expressed from the Government Benches in
debates at the time, such as:
“Where is the slick PR campaign encouraging absent parents to
take some responsibility for their children? I do not believe in
nationalising children. Instead, we need to get back to the idea
of taking responsibility”[—[Official Report, 21 October 2020;
Vol. 682, c.
1155.]](/search/column?VolumeNumber=682&ColumnNumber=1155&House=1)
or,
“‘it's a parent's job to feed their children'”. [—[Official
Report, 21 October 2020; Vol. 682, c.
1160.]](/search/column?VolumeNumber=682&ColumnNumber=1160&House=1)
Frankly, that is an insult to every parent who cannot afford to
feed their child. Of course, we all agree that it is a parent's
job to feed their children; that is exactly what almost every
parent is desperately trying to do.
Indeed, I met a mother at one of my constituency surgeries who
had fled an abusive partner. She was skipping her mental health
medication because she needed to use the money that she would
have spent on prescriptions to ensure that her daughter could eat
lunch at college. That is a mother taking her responsibility to
feed her child seriously, and she is paying the price with her
health and wellbeing. I am afraid that the Conservative
Government are forcing parents to make impossible choices such as
that. It is a scandal that a free school meal may be the only hot
meal that a child eats in a day in this country. In a country
such as England, families are struggling with this basic human
need, and it is appalling. The Government should hang their head
in shame.
Children are going hungry. In January 2024, the Food Foundation's
latest tracking found that 20% of households with children
reported experiencing food insecurity. Given those statistics, it
is not surprising that the use of food banks has skyrocketed.
Three per cent of all individuals in the UK used a food bank in
the financial year ending 2022, and there are over 2,500 food
banks operating in the UK.
Giving children in poverty a free school meal gives them the
energy to learn in the afternoon and it saves parents money. When
children go hungry, they make less progress, and have poorer
behaviour and worse health outcomes. According to the Child
Poverty Action Group, more than 4 million children in the UK are
living in poverty. That means that in an average classroom of 30,
nine children will be living in poverty. It also calculates that
900,000 children—a third of school-age children living in poverty
in England—miss out on free school meals. The £7,400 earnings
threshold has not increased since it was introduced in 2018, but
if it had risen in line with inflation it should be around
£9,300.
Parents are trapped in poverty by a system that punishes them for
working more hours. When universal credit was introduced in 2010,
the Government promised that people would be better off for each
hour they worked and for every pound they earned, but under the
Conservatives that is no longer true. If someone is earning just
under the £7,400 limit, taking on extra hours or getting a pay
rise could make them worse off, as their children would lose free
school meals, and if someone is earning just over the limit, they
could be better off taking a pay cut. Surely that is
nonsense.
Not only must we feed more children in poverty who are currently
not eligible for free school meals; we must also make changes to
ensure that every single child who is entitled to a free school
meal takes one up. In 2013, the Department for Education
estimated that around 14% of pupils entitled to free school meals
were not claiming them. The DFE does not routinely collect
information on the number of pupils who are entitled to free
school meals but do not make a claim. It is therefore largely
unknown how many children are not currently receiving the
benefit, but it is estimated that around one in 10 pupils
eligible for free school meals in England are not registered, so
are missing out. The kicker is that as well as these children
missing out on their meal, schools are unable to claim the pupil
premium and other important disadvantage funding that goes with
it. I commend the work of the FixOurFood programme, led by the
University of York together with the Food Foundation, which has
set out to test and evaluate the Sheffield model of opt-out
automatic enrolment with at least 20 local authorities.
Auto-enrolment is an important step on which I would welcome
movement from the Government.
Free school meals cannot and should not be produced from cheap,
substandard ingredients. We have all seen pictures of frankly
disgusting-looking school meals in some of our national papers.
Although Jamie Oliver has pushed the Government to improve the
nutritional quality of our school meals, there is still more work
to be done, but I am afraid that the root of these problems is
money. I appreciate that there are some hon. Members in this
place who think it is possible to provide a meal for an entire
family for just 30p a day, but those of us living in the real
world are aware that food inflation has been particularly
pernicious. We all know that funding for free school meals has
not kept up with inflation. The national funding formula value
for free school meals in the 2023-24 financial year is £480 per
pupil—up just £10 from the previous year—yet food prices have
risen by 15%.
Funding increases for universal infant free school meals would
have been laughable had the matter not been so serious. The
increases have been pitiful. In 2020, the funding rate for
universal infant free school meals was increased by just 7p per
pupil, and that increase was only the second since the policy was
first introduced in 2014. The first increase was just 4p;
overall, that is an increase of just 11p in universal infant free
school meals since 2014. The economy has taken a hammering and
inflation has been sky high, but infant free school meals have
got just 11p—not even enough for a lettuce. The resulting
shortfalls and cuts to other parts of the school budget mean that
children are losing out, or higher prices are being paid by
parents of junior pupils who pay for their meals.
Finally, I pay tribute to the successful campaign led by my
constituent Natalie Hay on changing free school meal guidance for
disabled children, who have been let down. They have often been
excluded from free school meal provision because they cannot
physically attend school. They may be waiting for a placement at
a specialist school or may not be able to eat the school meal
provided due to dietary requirements or sensory processing
difficulties. Instead of getting a supermarket voucher so that an
alternative meal can be provided, these children are often
forgotten. Thanks to Natalie's tenacity in fighting the system,
with the support of the charity Contact and CrowdJustice, the
legal guidance in this area has gone from just three pages to 19,
including food vouchers as an acceptable adjustment. I hope that
other families will not face the same prejudice and
discrimination that Natalie and her son did.
In conclusion, the Government's adviser on the national food
strategy, Henry Dimbleby, said:
“Hungry children cannot learn and cannot thrive. It is
unconscionable in 2022 that this situation has not yet been
addressed.”
We are now in 2024 and nothing has changed. Teachers are
increasingly having to act as a fourth emergency service,
consuming so much time, energy and resources dealing with these
issues beyond the school gates, including hunger. Extending free
school meals is one way that we can restore the support network
around our young people by ensuring that they have at least one
hot, cooked meal a day, giving them the energy to learn in the
afternoon. No child should go hungry at school. The Liberal
Democrats would extend free school meals, beginning with every
child in poverty, to save parents money, encourage healthy eating
and give children the energy to learn. It is a no-brainer.
Mr (in the Chair)
As quite a lot of Members wish to speak, the Front Benchers have
kindly agreed to keep their contributions to eight minutes, which
means that I can allow six minutes to Back-Bench Members. That is
advisory, but please do not go over; if Members go over that
limit, I will start to intervene to keep us to it.
4.43pm
(Cynon Valley) (Lab)
Diolch yn fawr, Mr Betts, and it is a pleasure to serve under
your chairship. I congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham
() on securing the debate.
I believe that access to sufficient, nutritious food is a basic
right. It is essential to the development and growth of our
children—our future generations—and the provision of free school
meals is fundamentally important to that. Guaranteeing children
at least one hot, healthy meal a day is a vital way of enabling
young people to develop, and there is strong evidence that it
improves their health and wellbeing, their academic performance
and our economic prosperity as a country. The Government like to
say that they have increased free school meal provision, but the
low household income threshold of £7,400 means that close to 1
million children living in poverty in England are not eligible
for the Government's free school meals scheme. Furthermore, as
the National Education
Union highlights, the divisions inherent in a means-tested
system mean that stigma remains a barrier to accessing free
school meals, even for parents who are aware of their children's
entitlement. It has been estimated that as many as 215,000
eligible children missed out in 2020. As well as being in the
interests of children and their families, expanding free school
meal provision makes sense economically. Research conducted by
PwC has found that expanding free school meal eligibility in line
with universal credit has economic benefits.
I am proud to say that in Wales we are leading the way in many
regards—alongside the other devolved nations, I hasten to add. I
have been fortunate to be involved in a grassroots campaign that
has led to free school meals being provided in all primary
schools in Wales. That is part of the co-operation agreement
between Welsh Labour and Plaid Cymru. As of last month, all
primary school children in Wales, including in my constituency of
Cynon Valley, are receiving free school meals.
It is time for England to catch up. I commend the campaign work
that the Food Foundation has done through its Nourishing the
Nation campaign. I also commend the NEU's Free School Meals for
All campaign. I thank them for their briefings ahead of the
debate today. England can start to catch up with Wales by
ensuring that at least the 900,000 children living in poverty who
do not have access to free school meals can have that.
We can do a lot more, including in Wales, and I want to mention
the excellent work that the Bevan Foundation has recently been
doing on provision for those currently subject to no recourse to
public funds. Eligibility assessments for children rely on
receipt of benefits that parents subject to no recourse
conditions cannot access, so Welsh Government guidance encourages
local authorities to exercise their discretion where children are
affected by no recourse. However, many children from low-income
households are not entitled to free school meals, so the Bevan
Foundation recommends that the Welsh Government introduce
automatic eligibility for free school meals for those children,
and England should be doing that as well.
To go further, I passionately believe that free school meals
should be an entitlement for all children and young people. I
started by saying that access to sufficient nutritious food is a
basic right, so ensuring that every woman, man and child has a
right to nutritious food should be enshrined in law.
I want to finish by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for
Liverpool, West Derby () and thanking him for the
sterling work that he is doing. My colleague and friend is
working tirelessly in demanding that the right to food be
enshrined in law, and I am pleased that I am able to support
that. We can afford it. We are the fifth—the fifth—richest nation
in the world and we could introduce a wealth tax and end tax
evasion and avoidance by the rich.
There is another way, and we have to start getting our priorities
right as a country. I am determined to continue to work in
collaboration with colleagues in this House but also, crucially,
with grassroots organisations and individuals to end the scourge
of child poverty.
4.49pm
Sir (East Ham) (Lab)
I, too, am very pleased to serve under your chairmanship, Mr
Betts. I congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham () on securing this very
welcome debate.
In 2022-23, 30% of children were in poverty after housing costs.
That is 4.3 million children, the highest number since 1998-99,
reversing all the progress that had been made in the years
following that time. The Government's family resources survey
found that one 10th of all households and 15% of households with
children were food insecure; that is the Government's own data.
The Food Foundation has been mentioned by both previous speakers.
Using a different methodology, taken from the USA's food security
survey model, it found that 17% of all households and 23.4% of
households with children were either moderately or severely food
insecure in June 2023. Those figures make it absolutely clear
that child poverty in the UK is much too high. We are limiting
our future potential by keeping it at this high level. The most
immediate benefit of free school meals is tackling the scourge of
child poverty.
As we have heard, according to the Child Poverty Action Group, a
third of school-age children in poverty are missing out on free
school meals at the moment. Free school meals are provided to
children with parents in receipt of a number of benefits, most
importantly universal credit, but only if their household income
is less than £7,400 a year. That threshold has not been uprated
in six years. I would be grateful if the Minister would comment
on that, because it ought to be uprated annually, along with
other benefits. The Government estimate that, once other social
security income is considered, the threshold equates to a total
household income for those families of around £18,000 to £24,000,
but that is below what the Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimates
that a single person needs for a minimum acceptable living
standard, let alone a couple with children.
We have heard about the cost-benefit analysis produced by PwC on
extending free school meals to all those who claim universal
credit. The analysis took account of research from Sweden to the
Department for Education, and from the Association for Young
People's Health to Ofsted, showing that free school meals reduce
obesity and absenteeism, improve academic attainment and raise
lifetime earnings. Those are all advantages that we need to
capture.
The hon. Member for Twickenham referred to the 2009 pilot in the
London Borough of Newham. I am pleased to be one of the Members
of Parliament who represent that borough, and I am glad to see my
hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Ms Brown) in her place
today. The assessment of the pilot showed that it led to
improvements in classroom behaviour, concentration and
attainment. Parents also reported that their children were more
willing to eat healthily at home. I am pleased to say that Newham
has continued to provide free school meals to all primary school
pupils ever since, defying waves of Government austerity in the
last 15 years. I want to pay tribute to the impressive commitment
of my colleagues on Newham Council to maintaining that very
important provision. I also pay tribute to Juniper, the
council-owned company that provides the meals and is very
well-known to my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and
Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), who works with it each year at a
free school meals event.
Last year the Mayor of London provided funding to help all London
boroughs follow suit, and I very much applaud that decision. It
is a very popular policy and no doubt one of the reasons for his
welcome re-election last week. Now that he has been re-elected,
provision across London is thankfully secure for the next four
years. Richard Parker and , the new Mayors in the West
Midlands and the North East, have committed to moving in that
direction too.
Free school meals help alleviate poverty and improve children's
health and educational attainment. Let us use this lever much
more widely to tackle the scourge of child poverty.
4.54pm
Ms (West Ham) (Lab)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Twickenham () and my hon. Friend the
Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) for the
work they do in this area.
Newham has been a pioneer in universal free school meals for over
a decade now, as my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham
(Sir ) has described. As has been
mentioned, 900,000 children in England live in poverty but are
not eligible for free school meals. Many of those children may
well live in Newham, but thankfully at primary schools in our
area they receive that important hot and healthy meal, even
though the Government's criteria seems to suggest that they do
not deserve it. I continue to believe that our local universal
free school meal offer is so important for child welfare because
so many families in our communities are enduring hardship, thanks
to incomes that simply do not pay the bills and a massive
shortage of decent affordable homes.
We have the second highest child poverty rate in the country and
the highest homelessness rate. More than 8,500 children in Newham
are growing up in temporary accommodation, which is often damp,
cold and mouldy—awful conditions. Last week, we learned that
across the country that statistic has risen by 15%. Our families,
whether they are technically in poverty or not, and whether they
can pay their rent or are struggling to do so, have been
massively impacted by the cost of living crisis over the past
years. That has increased child hunger and stress caused by
financial worries to simply appalling levels. The rise in child
hardship and child homelessness makes that one free school meal a
day all the more essential—sometimes it is that child's only
meal.
Teachers I speak to locally tell me ever-worse stories of how
children are coming in hungry day after day and the strategies
the children use to hide it. A hot decent lunch is a lifeline
that helps children concentrate. It makes school the haven it
should be, away from the stress and worry that often awaits them
at home. But rising homelessness costs to the council create risk
for Newham's new universal free school meal programme. Without
support, it could become less and less affordable, even as the
need for it grows higher and higher. That is because just a
fraction of free school meals in Newham are paid for by this
Government, who have done so much to increase need by driving
down council funding, eroding our stock of social homes and
cutting family incomes from social security.
Our Newham programme has always been paid for by local people
through our council budget and, in recent years, by our Mayor of
London. Thankfully, that should continue following Sadiq Khan's
victory at the weekend, which ended the financial threat posed by
the Conservative candidate. For Newham, widening national
eligibility for free school meals would have a double impact on
child poverty: it would free up resources to meet the wider
needs, including those that have been caused by homelessness. The
council and now the Mayor of London would save £6 million a year,
which could be reinvested in other services if the free school
meals programme was fully funded by the Government.
Healthy free school meals impact on many aspects of our
children's lives and on their opportunities. A University of
Essex study, which included Newham, found that families receiving
free school meals were saving £37 a month per child and that
childhood obesity was reduced by 9.3% for children of reception
age. That is obviously important for protecting children's
lifelong health and for reducing costs to the NHS for decades to
come, particularly in Newham where almost 30% of year 6 children
are affected by obesity.
Even small expansions in eligibility for free school meals are
estimated to have economic, social and health benefits. A £1
investment has been found to recoup £1.38 in returns from higher
educational achievement, savings to school budgets and reduced
NHS costs from obesity. Ultimately, this is a debate about
whether we have a Government that are willing to take a long-term
view and make an investment in our children that would more than
pay for itself in the coming years. Surely that is the kind of
investment we need to build a fairer, healthier and more
prosperous future for Newham and all our communities.
4.59pm
(North Ayrshire and Arran)
(SNP)
I am delighted to participate in the debate as a former recipient
of free school meals. I know how important they are to support
learning and attainment for children. I am extremely proud that
in Scotland we have the most generous free school meal provision
anywhere in the UK by some significant distance, with universal
provision for all pupils in primary 1 to 5 and eligible pupils
who are older. Last year, free school meal provision helped feed
231,967 children. With 29% of children in my constituency of
North Ayrshire and Arran living in poverty, free school meals
could not matter more.
Despite our progress, however, we in Scotland are not content. We
are going to expand free school meals to all primary children,
and that is actively in the works. The Scottish Government is
working with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to
prepare primary schools and their infrastructure for a full,
universal roll-out of free school meals for all primary children,
which should be completed in 2026. That is supported by £43
million in capital from the Scottish Government in 2024-25 and an
additional £6 million in resource spending, with local
authorities benefiting from £21.7 million allocated to support
eligible children during the school holidays. This support saves
families £400 per year and far outstrips the free school meal
offers in any other part of the UK. That matters, because hungry
children do not learn. Ensuring that children receive a
nutritious free school meal is therefore a fundamental part of
supporting attainment. How could it not be?
By contrast, the incoming Labour Government have ruled out
universal free school meals despite previous commitments to that,
just as so many of Labour's commitments have been dropped the
more certain it becomes of forming the next Government. You would
not know this from the comments made today, but in a matter of
months we can be pretty sure that there will be a Labour
Government with a significant majority, and we know, because we
have been told, that there will be no movement on free school
meals.
The arguments that Labour Members have made today to the Minister
would be better directed to their own leadership, which refuses
to deliver on free school meals. Indeed, that reminds me of the
debate we had after the UK Government's Budget, when Labour MP
after Labour MP condemned the Budget and then refused to vote
against it. I think that may be what some people call
gaslighting.
We cannot leave the matter there because, in a somewhat grotesque
development, we have the incoming Labour Government committing to
leaving bankers' bonuses uncapped. That appears to be sacrosanct.
So, we appear to be balancing children's hunger against rich
bankers' bonuses, and that, for the new Labour Government, which
we can be pretty sure will be arriving, seems to be the way
things are going to be. It seems that the more things change, the
more they stay the same.
Meanwhile in Scotland, we have a Scottish child payment of £26.70
per week per child for the poorest children. The cumulative
impact of that, alongside other policies such as free school
meals, seems to have reduced child poverty by 10% from what it
would otherwise be. In other words, 10% of those children have
not fallen into relative poverty as a direct result of those
policies. Indeed, the Child Poverty Action Group referred to the
Scottish child payment as “a game changer” when it comes to
tackling child poverty.
One of the basic tasks of the state is to ensure that every child
has access to opportunity, regardless of their family
circumstances. Tackling child poverty and child hunger is a
fundamental of that. We know that Labour speak with forked tongue
on this issue, and frequently so in Scotland. The reality is that
when it comes to supporting redistributive policies designed to
create a fairer, more equal Scotland, the Labour party in
Scotland continues to ape and mimic the lines from Labour in
Westminster and fulfil its role as a branch office.
Austerity hits children hardest. People do not like to talk about
this, but we suffered austerity under the previous Labour Prime
Minister, , and that has only been
continued under the Tory Government. We know that it will be
embraced yet again by the incoming UK Labour Government. There is
no respite from austerity when Westminster is a parcel that is
passed between two parties devoid of any so-called vision beyond
austerity.
Scotland's children are faring better because the SNP Scottish
Government choose to use their power to support them, and to
govern is to choose. Sadly, neither of the Westminster parties
today will choose universal free school meals for children. I am
proud that in Scotland we are making a different choice for
children in Scotland. I fear for the children in England.
5.05pm
Mrs (Washington and Sunderland
West) (Lab)
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I
want to thank the hon. Member for Twickenham () for securing today's debate
and for her excellent opening speech setting the scene. The topic
of school food—and specifically free school meals—has been an
incredibly important one for me throughout my parliamentary
career. In fact, I am chair of the all-party parliamentary group
on school food, which I set up in 2010, and I am pleased to say
that a number of colleagues here today are also very important
members.
As we have heard, in the UK our devolved nations each have their
own individual free school meal offers. In Scotland, all primary
school children, regardless of family income, are eligible for
free school meals and all secondary school students are subject
to a means-tested offer. In Wales, all children who attend
mainstream primary schools are eligible for a free school meal.
In Northern Ireland there is no universal offer; however, the
eligibility criteria for the means-tested offer includes families
with an annual taxable income of up to £16,190 or net earnings of
under £14,000 a year, which is almost twice as high as the same
offer in England, and means that around 30% of the entire school
population are eligible. The levels of poverty across the
north-east, and indeed in other parts of England, are the same as
in Northern Ireland, and yet such different levels of
means-testing are used. That is just unfair.
In England, all children in reception, year 1 and year 2
currently receive a hot, healthy meal each day. Universal infant
free school meals is a policy I am very proud of, having worked
with Henry Dimbleby and on the school food plan that
helped convince them to put universal primary free school meals
as one of their recommendations, which, as we heard, the former
Deputy Prime Minister then enacted when they were in the
coalition Government, which I think we are all very happy still
exists to this day—the free school meals, not the coalition
Government! However, from year 3 onwards, provision of free
school meals is means-tested. Only children in households in
England who receive universal credit and earn less than
£7,400—excluding benefit payments—are eligible for free school
meals. On that note, in today's short speech I will focus on how
we must change the policy in England. For too long, England has
been the poor relation. It is just not good enough. We have the
least generous offers around school food, and the highest rates
of children in poverty who are ineligible for free school
meals.
We must also think about the quality of the food that we are
providing to our students. The school food standards are a
fantastic set of regulations that provide guidance on the
nutritional quality and variety of food that children should have
access to at school. When they are followed correctly, the school
meal offers are some of the best in the world, and I work with
parliamentarians around the world, so I speak with some authority
on this. However, sadly some schools struggle to do so, and they
need support. In England there is no consistent assessment,
monitoring or reporting of whether schools are meeting the
standards for school food. There is no ring-fencing of funding,
either. This means that the quality is very variable, with some
children benefiting from nutritious, delicious food while others
receive lower-quality meals.
We must discuss the structural issues surrounding provision that
make delivering school meals unsustainable. For example, as has
been talked about already, the funding per meal for universal
infant free school meals is far too low. It is just £2.53 across
most of England, despite the average meal cost exceeding this.
The funding must be raised to £3 per meal to adequately cover the
cost of the ingredients and the labour costs for school food. We
all eat in restaurants; we know the prices have gone up. Schools
are being asked to do an impossible thing at the moment. The
rising cost of these meals and the dwindling funding means that,
inevitably, quality is going to slip.
We need to revolutionise eligibility. I truly believe that the
best school meal offer is a universal free school meal offer, as
we have seen with the triumph of Mayor Sadiq Khan's universal
free school meal offer for primary school children in London. It
seems popular as well—I think he won, didn't he? But I understand
that the road to a universal offer is a journey. That is why I am
calling on the Government to, without delay, expand eligibility
to all children whose parents and carers receive universal
credit, so that we can begin to tackle the horrifying reality
that, as we have heard, 900,000 children living in poverty are
currently ineligible, according to the Child Poverty Action
Group.
The next step on this road is to implement automatic enrolment as
soon as possible. Local authorities like Sheffield are leading
the way on this already, and prove it works. Every eligible child
should be eligible from day one. This is not an expensive change.
The Government already know exactly who is eligible and who is
not, so families should not need to apply. It needs to be
automatic from when the child is enrolled in school, or when
their circumstances change. That will help schools too because
they will get extra pupil premium, and that can then unlock
access to resources and support as well as a hot meal for these
children.
Free school meals are foundational to a fair and equal school
experience. When we provide them, they leave inequality at the
school gate and liberate children from the injustice of the haves
and the have-nots.
5.11pm
(Liverpool, West Derby)
(Lab)
It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Betts.
Thank you to the hon. Member for Twickenham () for securing this important
debate. I echo her praise for the fantastic campaign victory of
Natalie Hay and Contact, for disabled children, their parents and
guardians.
I start by sharing the words of the children of Monksdown Primary
School in West Derby, who wrote to the Prime Minister last year
to ask him to offer free school meals for all pupils. One pupil
wrote:
I am writing to you because I believe all children deserve free
school meals. The inflation over the past few months means some
people have been starving at school because of the cost of
living…so some parents have not had enough to get school
meals.”
Another pupil wrote:
“Parents might not have the money to pay for food for you. If
your brain is hungry, you will feel unhappy and tired.”
Another pupil wrote:
“We don't have a choice to go to school because it's the law but
we have to pay for lunch.”
Adam Gidwitz once wrote:
“There is a wisdom in children, a kind of knowing, a kind of
believing, that we, as adults, do not have.”
It has been almost a year since the children wrote to the Prime
Minister, who unfortunately does not have that wisdom. Imagine
the difference that would have made for families with their
children's education, health and happiness if he had listened to
the children at our primary and introduced free school meals like
they asked.
Last year, over 4 million children experienced food insecurity,
not having access to nutritious and balanced meals or having to
skip meals. That includes many thousands in my constituency,
where the relative child poverty rate is significantly higher
than national averages and where, as a city, one in three people
are in food poverty. This is devastating for children and
families in West Derby and Liverpool, including the many who are
hungry and do not fall beneath the Government's restrictively-low
household income threshold of £7,400 to be eligible for free
school meals. They are among the 900,000 children nationally who
are below the poverty line yet still do not qualify.
It is imperative that the Government and politicians understand
that children are going to school hungry as a result of the
political choices made in this place. The evidence is clear. We
do need universal provision: a nutritious free school breakfast
and lunch provided to all primary and secondary school children
as a necessity, as an investment in the future of our children,
who are the future of our country. That is what it is—an
investment. It should not be seen as a cost.
The right political choices cannot wait a moment longer.
Universal free school meals would improve attainment and reduce
pressure on teachers, parents and the NHS, and evidence has shown
they could help drive local economies. Findings from the
Government's own pilot noted improved academic attainment, with
children making between four and eight weeks' more progress in
maths and English. The statistics are astounding. Crucially,
universal provision removes all stigma from school food and
ensures that all children, regardless of their economic
circumstances, have an equal opportunity to thrive and be
healthy. Surely that is what we all want in this place.
The Government's own former adviser, Henry Dimbleby, wrote:
“When children sit down to eat with friends and teachers in a
civilised environment, it cements relationships, helps them to
develop social skills and reinforces positive behaviour
throughout the day.”
Backing that up, the Select Committee on Environment, Food and
Rural Affairs heard powerful evidence, including from the United
Nations special rapporteur on the right to food, about the
benefits, and that such investment would more than pay for itself
in the long run. This has been touched on, but it is important to
reinforce that it would pay for itself.
PwC's cost-benefit analysis of universal free school meals showed
the undeniable societal and economic benefits. It calculated that
if this Government or future Governments made the investment, the
“core benefits” over 20 years of providing universal free school
meals would be worth £41.3 billion, compared with a total cost of
£24.1 billion. It is an absolute no-brainer, regardless of where
anyone sits ideologically.
We need political leadership to guarantee and realise all our
children's right to healthy food. Well done to for showing us an example of
that leadership in London—it is interesting what popularity it
produced. We all knew that—we have been saying it for a long
time—and it is great to see the new Mayors who have been elected
taking it up. If we accept the universal and compulsory
requirement that all children up to the age of 16 must be in
school, why do we break the principle of universal care,
nurturing and protection in relation to meals during the school
day? We would think it absurd for children not to be provided
with adequate shelter, heating, drinking water or sanitary
provision while in school, so why do we take a different approach
to the equally essential element of food?
I pay tribute to all the parents, educators and pupils in West
Derby—and MPs—who have been fighting this good fight for a long
time. Those good friends, and campaigners and trade unions right
across the country, have been campaigning tirelessly for the
expansion of free school meals, which is a fundamental part of
our Right to Food campaign. Political choices define our time in
this place, and I implore the Minister to listen and to make the
right political choice by investing in universal free school
meals for every child in this country.
5.16pm
(York Central)
(Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts.
We have heard how 900,000 children from low-income families are
not in receipt of free school meals and about the adequacy of
what many children are receiving, not least if they take a packed
lunch—they are not being nutritiously fed throughout the day. In
fact, only 1% of packed lunches reach nutritional standards. In
York, that is very much the case. We have about 4,000 children
who are entitled to be in receipt of free school meals, but only
about 3,000—about 75%—actually receiving them, because we do not
have auto-enrolment. I urge the Government to join up the data so
that we see eligibility following through to receipt of free
school meals. It can be done, it must be done, and it will ensure
that those families are well served.
I want to talk in particular about York Hungry Minds. York has
the lowest-funded upper-tier local authority in the country, yet,
as a Right to Food city, it prioritised feeding hungry children
when Labour came to power in the council last May. City of York
Council put the first £100,000 into Two Ridings Community
Foundation as a vehicle for sourcing and independently funding
the programme. It then called for city partners, including in
industry and business, as well as individuals from the community,
to boost that fund.
The pilot that York is engaged in is based in two schools:
Westfield, where there are already far better healthy lunch
choices for the children at key stage 2; and Burton Green, which
is investing in breakfast for children. The results are already
incredible. Starting in January this year, the research piece by
the University of York will follow the pilot through to the end
of the year. Researchers are already seeing an improvement in
attendance—an issue that the Government are wrestling with at the
moment—and far better engagement in learning. These are the early
seeds of what it means to have a full stomach and to be able to
work in such an environment.
I really do congratulate those involved in the project, but we
need to ensure that the funding continues and is available for
roll-out across our city. That is certainly the ambition of the
Labour council, but we need the support of Government. I am
delighted that Labour is so committed to ensuring that children
start the day with a full stomach. We know the difference that
will make for them.
This is not just about what happens for a child in school; it is
about resetting the life course inequality that we see across our
society. We want to address that by ensuring that children are
well fed. That inequality results in differentiations in exam
results, in where children move on to, and ultimately in the
career choices that they can make and in their incomes. If we are
to break intergenerational inequality, that small measure of
having high-value, highly nutritious meals at the start of the
day—and, I trust, rolling into the middle of the day too—is so
important. That can be the game changer that families need.
However, we need to evaluate as we go, and that is why I
congratulate the University of York on its investment in not only
the project that I described but in looking at child hunger. It
is evaluating the difference that the project will make to the
lives of those children by looking at how much healthy food is
going to them as a result of the menu choices; by looking at the
amount of food waste, which is another important factor; and by
looking at any changes in readiness to learn, in absence due to
ill health or in school attendance. Looking at the data, which I
trust the Minister will do, will strengthen the opportunity to
roll out these programmes.
It is also important that the programme looks at the stigma
around the provision of free school meals. We must remember that
no child wants to be differentiated because of the income level
or socioeconomic disadvantage their family experiences.
Mrs Hodgson
One of the reasons that and Henry Dimbleby, who
authored the school food plan, said that they included
recommendation 17 on universal free primary school meals is that,
when they looked at the evidence, the children who improved the
most when all the boats rose were those who were already entitled
to free school meals. The only thing that had been removed was
the stigma. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is very
important?
My hon. Friend knows so much about this subject and could not
make a more powerful point. We need all young people who have
hungry stomachs to be able to engage, and taking away the stigma
not only gives those children confidence but ensures that the
issue of hunger is addressed.
I would like to quickly reinforce some of the points that
colleagues have made. It is important that we make sure that
thresholds rise and are appropriate, and it is important that
people can enrol in the holiday activities fund if their
eligibility changes over the holiday period, rather than having
to wait until the beginning of the new year. It is possible to do
that, and I trust that the Minister will.
5.23pm
(Wansbeck) (Lab)
As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr
Betts. I thank the hon. Member for Twickenham () for bringing this important
debate to the House.
I want to declare an interest from the very beginning: I was on
free school meals for quite some time as a young lad. With my
four brothers, that was five of us all on free school meals for
quite some time. We had a very difficult experience. As most
speakers have mentioned, there is a stigma attached to free
school meals, and we suffered that stigma. However, we lived in a
very socially deprived area where the vast majority of people
were on free school meals.
It was a terrible situation, but it is not until we grow older
and get wiser that we begin to understand what actually happened
when we were in that sort of position. We did not argue about
what was relative poverty, what was abject poverty and what was
absolute poverty. We knew we were hungry, but we did not argue
about how hungry we were, and we did not quote politicians and
say, “Well, it's not as bad as it was last year under this
Government. It's not as bad as what it could be, and it's not
absolute poverty.” We were hungry.
If parents who are working have to use a food bank to put food on
the table, what does that say for a nation like the UK? The top
1% of people in this country own as much as the bottom 50%. That
is the problem: where the wealth of this nation is. Food poverty,
child poverty, pensioner poverty—whatever we want to call these
issues— are political choices. There is no doubt about that—they
are political choices. If we want to feed the kids, we can feed
the kids. If it means something else has got to stop, let it
stop, and let us feed the kids.
I went to a school in my constituency a while ago—I have
mentioned it before. The headteacher was slightly late. He came
in and said, “I'm sorry, Mr Lavery. I've just had to send a
little boy home. I've had to exclude him.” This was a child at a
first school. I said, “Oh, what's the problem?” He said, “Well,
he went missing. He said, ‘I'm away to the toilet'—he put his
hand up, went to the toilet—and didn't come back.” So they went
looking for this little lad. They found him in the cloakroom. He
had been in people's satchels. He had a sandwich in his hand that
he had stolen from somebody's bag. This was a four-year-old kid,
who was that hungry he had to steal sandwiches from somebody
else. This is 2024, in one of the richest countries in the
world—one of the richest countries on this planet—and we have
situations like that occurring in schools not just in my
constituency but up and down the country.
We have choices to make. Do we want to feed the kids? Are we
going to keep debating across this Chamber how many people are in
this type of poverty or that type of poverty, and what
improvements have been made? If one kid in this country has not
got the opportunity for a hot, nutritious meal every day, there
is something sadly wrong with this country. It is a simple as
that.
We can say what we want, but everyone in here, every MP in this
House of Commons and every Member of the Lords—we can all afford
as much food as we can eat. That does not mean that we should
ignore what is happening out there. Universal free school meals
would be very important to kids and very important to the nation.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby () said, it is an investment in
the nation rather than anything else.
I conclude simply by saying that if we, every Member of the House
of Commons, cannot agree on that, then you know what? We should
bolt the doors of this place, give out 650 redundancy notices and
bulldoze this building into the Thames.
5.29pm
(Coventry South) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts, and
always an honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck
(). I congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham
() on securing this very
important debate.
After 14 years of Conservative Government, a record number of
children in Coventry South and across the country are growing up
in poverty, arriving at school hungry in the morning and going to
bed hungry at night. In the west midlands, 11 children in every
class of 30 are living in poverty. Due to the strict eligibility
criteria for free school meals, by which families have to earn
less than £7,400 a year to qualify, across the country nearly 1
million children in poverty are missing out.
We have all heard horror stories like the one we just
heard—pupils turning up to school with just mouldy bread or a
packet of crisps for lunch, or sometimes with nothing at all;
kids bursting into tears because they are worried that there is
no food at home, or stealing bagels from breakfast club or from
their friends' satchels just to get by. That is why, along with
trade unions and other anti-poverty groups, I have long
campaigned for universal free school meals for primary school
children, so that every child in primary school throughout the
country is given a warm, healthy lunch each day, and no-one is
left learning on an empty stomach.
The benefits of this policy are clear. Research shows that free
school meals boost children's concentration, behaviour and
attainment. They also have health benefits, improving nutrition
and reducing obesity. It is also a great help to families, saving
parents' time and relieving financial pressure. As has been
highlighted in this debate, it is important that free school
meals are universal, giving all children the opportunity to eat,
learn and grow together. Means-tested policies create stigma and
they allow children to slip through the net. Too often,
means-tested services are lower quality services, and services
for the poor do indeed become poor services.
We see consensus growing on this issue, which is very welcome. In
Wales and Scotland, all primary school children are set to
receive a free, warm, healthy lunch each day. It is about time
England did the same.
In last week's elections, mayoral candidates up and down the
country campaigned and were elected on a platform of supporting
free school meals for all primary school kids. In London, has already made this a reality
and now pledges to make it permanent with funding from his
mayoral budget. Mayors including Andy in Greater Manchester, newly
elected Richard Parker in the West Midlands and in the North East are
calling on the Government to give them the funding they need to
deliver it too. They know that this policy makes common sense and
they know it is popular too, with 75% of parents supporting
universal free school meals for primary school kids. That is why
they have won their elections. Is it not time that this
Government took a leaf out of the book of Khan, Burnham, Parker
and McGuinness, and instead of ignoring children in poverty and
resorting to desperate attacks on minorities to distract from
their own failings, they start to deliver the popular, unifying,
anti-poverty policies our communities need, starting off with
universal free school meals for primary school children?
Mr Betts
I thank all colleagues for being so co-operative in terms of the
time. I will call the Front Benchers now, starting with the
Scottish National party spokesperson.
5.32am
(Glasgow North West)
(SNP)
Thank you, Mr Betts. It is a pleasure to serve under your
chairmanship. I congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham on
bringing this debate forward. I think everybody here understands
the importance of children being well fed in order to learn well.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran
(), I was a teacher for over
20 years. We understood the difference it made to have children
in front of us who actually had food in their stomachs.
Child Poverty Action Group figures show that child poverty is at
a record high in the UK, with 30% of all children living in
poverty. Significantly, 69% of these children are from working
families. The issue around universal credit and eligibility has
been brought up by a number of Members, notably the right hon.
Member for East Ham (Sir ) and the hon. Member for York
Central (). Families on universal
credit are eligible only if their after-tax income is less than
£7,400 a year. I wonder if any of us could get by on such a small
amount. The problem with a borderline like that is that those who
are just on the wrong side of it tend to be impacted the most
harshly. The harsh means-testing in England, which the hon.
Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) referred
to, means that many children are struggling to learn and to get
by, even though their parents are in work.
The problem of stigma was brought up by the hon. Members for
Washington and Sunderland West and for Cynon Valley (). Stigma is always associated
with means-testing for free school meals. In Scotland, it was
important to us to have a universal policy for all children in
primary school. At the moment it has been rolled out from P1 to
P5, but as my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran
pointed out, it will be rolled out further over the next two
years.
Scotland has the most generous free school meals offer of any UK
nation. It saves parents and families around £400 per child per
year, but it is not just about the money. It is about the value
and importance that we place on children. In Scotland, children
are seen as an asset, not an inconvenience. That starts from the
very moment that parents are expecting a child. They get a baby
box with books and various lovely things to give them a great
start. Then we have the Scottish child payment of £26.70 for
every eligible child in Scotland, which has been described by the
Trussell Trust as game-changing and has seen food bank use
reduced dramatically. That is how we make a difference to child
poverty.
Of course, those policies can go only a small way towards
tackling the cost of living crisis, but they are part of the big
picture. I was moved by the hon. Member for Wansbeck () talking about his personal experience. He also talked
about political choices, and this is indeed about political
choices. I found myself nodding along and agreeing with Labour
colleagues, but they need to take that to their leadership,
because the party cannot have the policy in its manifesto in 2019
and then drop it for the next election. If the Labour party is in
government after the election, I hope that Labour colleagues keep
up the pressure on their own leadership.
The benefits of free school meals were highlighted when we heard
about increased attainment, increased pupil scores and increased
cognitive ability. Free school meals also increase school
attendance, because it encourages parents to get their children
to school if they know that they will get a meal. The hon.
Members for Liverpool, West Derby () and for Coventry South () talked about the benefits
of that. I was pleased to read that free school meals also reduce
obesity. We know that childhood obesity carries health problems
on into adulthood, which has economic problems for us down the
road, so it is worthwhile investing at this point.
Some 80% of the public support free school meals for children in
households receiving universal credit. At its annual conference
this month, The National Association of Head Teachers called for
children to get free school meals automatically if their families
are eligible for universal credit. James Bowen, the assistant
general secretary, said:
“I think it's an absolute no brainer.”
I agree.
5.38pm
(Newcastle upon Tyne
North) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I
congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham () and my hon. Friend the
Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) on
securing this important debate on an issue that affects so many
of the poorest and most vulnerable children in our country.
We have heard powerful speeches from my right hon. Friend the
Member for East Ham (Sir ), and my hon. Friends the
Members for Cynon Valley (), for West Ham (Ms Brown), for
Liverpool, West Derby (), for York Central (), for Wansbeck (), and for Coventry South (). They all touched on the
impact of the cost of living crisis on families in their areas,
the shocking levels of child poverty, which is a scourge on our
society, and the rampant inequality in our communities, which is
holding our country back.
The cost of living crisis is making more and more families worry
about how to make ends meet. Energy bills, rent, and the cost of
clothes and basic essentials are leaving far too many children
going hungry. School leaders, teachers and support staff are
increasingly bringing food and supplies into schools and even
washing uniforms to ensure that children have what they need and
are ready to learn. In 2024 it is a national scandal.
Currently around 2 million pupils are known to be eligible for
free school meals. The eligibility rate has increased sharply in
the last few years—an indication not of the Government's
generosity but of appalling economic failure—and now represents
around a quarter of children attending state schools. There are
significant regional variations: in my local authority of
Newcastle, 39.6% of children are eligible; in Wokingham, fewer
than one in 10 are. Labour in government will focus on lifting
those children and their families out of poverty, making sure
that families have the dignity and peace of mind to be able to
provide for their families.
An important first step towards that will be Labour's plan to
fund free breakfast clubs in every primary school, paid for by
clamping down on tax avoidance and closing the tax loopholes in
the Tories' non-dom plan. It will give all primary school
children not only a healthy start to the morning, but additional
time in school to play, socialise and be ready for the school
day, because it really is as much about the club as it is about
the breakfast. Crucially, it will also help parents to save money
on childcare. It will put money back in parents' pockets directly
and give parents greater flexibility at work so they can earn
more for their families.
With clear evidence that our breakfast clubs would also improve
children's attendance and attainment, they will be central to our
determined drive to narrow the attainment gap as well as tackle
child poverty. We are prioritising breakfast clubs and have a
plan to fund them at a cost of £365 million a year, which
includes Barnett funding to the devolved Administrations.
In a report last year, the Institute for Fiscal Studies argued
that making free school meals universal for all primary school
pupils would cost £1 billion a year; offering them to all
children from reception through to year 11 would cost £2.5
billion a year. In the current economic environment, we must
focus on more targeted measures.
The Conservative Government have done precious little for
children from the poorest families. The failure to develop a good
childcare and early years support system means that children
eligible for free school meals are already five months behind
their peers by the time they start school. Once in school, the
attainment gap between children on free schools meals and their
peers is the widest it has been for a decade. That is why Labour
has committed to ensuring that inclusivity is a new focus for
Ofsted, ensuring that inspections look at how schools support the
attainment and inclusion of pupils eligible for free school
meals, including those with special educational needs and
disabilities, to ensure that they do what they can to break down
the barriers to opportunity.
Does the hon. Lady agree with me that one aspect of inclusivity
is universalism when it comes to free school meals? She is quite
rightly talking up the benefits of breakfast clubs and the
importance of children starting the day not feeling hungry, but
does she share my view that feeling hungry after lunchtime, if
they have not had a lunch, is also a problem, and some children
will miss out unless free school meals are universal?
Yes. I have focused on the role that Ofsted should have in
ensuring inclusivity for children who are eligible for free
school meals, including those with special educational needs and
disabilities, but the focus of Labour's policies is to put money
back into parents' and families' pockets, so that we can break
down the barriers to opportunity that far too many people in this
country face.
I also want to comment on the quality and, in some cases,
quantity of school food, as I know that concern is also expressed
up and down the country. The Government produce guidance on
school food that looks at issues such as foods high in fat, sugar
and salt, healthy drinks and starchy foods. However, there are
still concerns around schools and the quality of school food, and
there is an evident need to ensure that all schools and food
suppliers are ensuring that the highest standards of school food
are in place. Especially considering our breakfast clubs policy,
Labour would look at the guidance for school food again to ensure
that they truly deliver the healthy start to the school day that
we know children need.
I thank every Member who has contributed to today's debate and
assure them that the next Labour Government will be committed to
reducing child poverty, which is a blight on our society that
must be urgently addressed.
Breakfast clubs are a lovely idea, but does the hon. Lady
recognise that, as a number of colleagues have said, many
children live in temporary accommodation, have an extremely long
journey to school and often miss breakfast, and will therefore
lose out altogether? She talked about targeted intervention, so
why would her colleagues in the other place not support the
Liberal Democrat amendment to make sure that every child on
universal credit got access to a free school meal, or, at the
very least, Henry Dimbleby's recommendation of raising the
threshold to £20,000?
The breakfast club offer, which we have fully costed and will
deliver, is a first step on the road to making sure that we put
money back into people's pockets, break down the barriers to
opportunity and deliver a cross-Government strategy to tackle
child poverty. Free breakfast clubs are the first step on that
road.
However, we also want to see the costs of uniforms come down for
all families. We want to give children the best start in life to
set them up for life and set them up to learn. As the hon. Member
for Twickenham pointed out herself, after 14 years of
Conservative Government we have a situation where an average of
nine children in a classroom of 30 are growing up in poverty.
That is why we will introduce a cross-Government taskforce aimed
at breaking down the barriers to opportunity for every child in
every community. We will focus the limited resources we are set
to inherit where we believe they can impact the most.
Mrs Hodgson
I will be very brief; I think my hon. Friend is just coming to
her big wind-up moment. I know she is in an invidious position—an
impossible position. I am sure that, like the rest of us, she
would like to stand here and announce universal free school
meals, and obviously she cannot, because that is not in her gift
today.
One thing that I notice has not been raised at all today—I know
she will be concerned about it and could take this back to the
Front Bench when they are developing policy—is the issue of
dinner money debt. She talked about putting money back into
parents' pockets, and there are so many families who struggle
with dinner money debt. Universal free school meals would
obviously solve that. When the policy is being developed and
talked about, I hope she will feed that in.
My hon. Friend is such a passionate campaigner for children in
her area, and indeed the country. I did not want to let this
moment pass without her getting the chance to add in that final
additional measure that she would like to see.
I am conscious that the Government need to respond to this
debate, so I do not want to take up any more time. I want to
finish by emphasising that child poverty in this country is
pernicious, but does not demand a simple fix. It needs hard work,
focus and prioritisation across Government Departments. It needs
a targeted approach to tackle the root causes of poverty and
break down the barriers that are holding far too many people
back. The next Labour Government will take on that mission, and
like previous Labour Governments, we are determined to deliver on
it.
5.49pm
The Minister for Schools ()
It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Betts. I join
colleagues in congratulating the hon. Member for Twickenham
() on securing this important
debate. I thank everybody who has taken part alongside her: the
hon. Members for Cynon Valley (), for West Ham (Ms Brown), for
North Ayrshire and Arran (), for Washington and
Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), for Liverpool, West Derby (), for York Central (), for Wansbeck (), and for Coventry South (), and the right hon. Member
for East Ham (Sir ). I also thank the hon.
Member for Glasgow North West (), who spoke for the SNP,
and the spokesperson for the official Opposition, whose speech
contained a short section on free school meals. This is an
important subject on which we have heard striking and compelling
speeches from Members, and the debate has been important and
useful.
The Government are determined to ensure that every child,
regardless of their background, has the best start in life, and
nutrition and school meals are important in that. Not only do
they support the development of healthy eating habits that can
pave the way to lifelong wellbeing, but they help pupils to
concentrate, to learn and to get the most from their education in
the immediate term. For those reasons, the Department for
Education spends more than £1.5 billion annually on policies to
deliver free and nutritious food to children and young people;
that is on food provision alone. On top of that, we allocate
money to schools to support the education and opportunity of
disadvantaged children that is driven by their free-school-meal
status, such as through the pupil premium and the deprivation
factor in the national funding formula.
I am proud that this Government have extended eligibility for
free school meals more than any other. We spend over £1 billion
per annum delivering free lunches to the greatest ever proportion
of school children: over a third. That is in contrast to the one
in six who were receiving a free school meal in 2010. This change
is despite unemployment being down by a million, more than
600,000 fewer children being in workless households since 2010
and the proportion of people in low hourly pay having halved
since 2015.
Mrs Hodgson
I just want to point out that that is, of course, because of the
introduction of universal infant free school meals, which, it has
to be said, was a coalition Government policy; the Conservatives
cannot really take full credit for that because I doubt it would
have happened without the coalition Government.
When the hon. Member for Twickenham was on her feet, she claimed
that the 2014 Act was entirely due to the Liberal Democrats. Of
course, it was not; it was a coalition Government at the time.
The hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West is partly
right. There have been multiple extensions to free school meal
eligibility, including the provision of free school meals to
disadvantaged children in further education colleges. The big
factor has been the extension of protections under universal
credit, which of course has happened since the coalition
Government.
Sir
rose—
I want to give way to the right hon. Gentleman, who speaks with
great authority on these matters. I am worried about the time; if
he is quick, I will be quick in response.
Sir
Has the Minister thought about the prospect of uprating that
£7,400-a-year income threshold for eligibility for free school
meals?
The right hon. Gentleman has been in these positions himself, so
he knows that, of course, we keep that under review. However, I
gently point out that it has been under the current system that
this much greater proportion of children and young people are
eligible for free school meals than was the case when other
Governments, including one of whom he was a very distinguished
member, were in office.
Overall, more than 2 million pupils are eligible for
benefits-related free school meals. In addition, as we have just
been discussing, 1.3 million infants in reception, year 1 and
year 2 get a free meal under the universal infant free school
meals policy, which was introduced in 2014. Further to that, more
than 90,000 disadvantaged students in further education receive a
free meal at lunchtime. Together, this helps to improve the
education of children and young people; it boosts their health
and saves their parents considerable sums of money.
We have also introduced extensive protections, which have been in
effect since 2018. They ensure that, while universal credit is
being fully rolled out, any child eligible for free school meals
will retain their entitlement and keep getting free meals until
the end of the phase—in other words, until the end of primary or
secondary—even if their family's income rises above the income
threshold such that this would otherwise have stopped.
We all know the saying that breakfast is the most important meal
of the day, and the evidence does back that up. It shows that
children who do not have breakfast are more likely to have issues
with behaviour, wellbeing and learning. That is why we continue
to support the provision of breakfast, by investing up to £40
million in the national school breakfast programme. The funding
supports up to 2,700 schools in disadvantaged areas, and means
that thousands of children from low-income families are offered a
free, nutritious breakfast, to better support their attainment,
wellbeing and readiness to learn. I say gently to the hon. Member
for Newcastle upon Tyne North that we think it is important to
target that breakfast investment where it is most needed, which
does not mean only in primary schools.
Ms
rose—
I am going to ask the hon. Lady to forgive me, because we have
less than five minutes to go, and I must reach the
conclusion.
Further to that, we recognise that nutrition does not cease to be
an issue outside of term time, and that holiday periods can be
particularly difficult for disadvantaged and low-income families.
That is one reason why we continue to support the delivery of
enriching activities and provision of nutritious food through the
holiday activities and food programme. It has been backed by more
than £200 million in funding, and now sees all 153 local
authorities in England taking part.
The success of the programme is plain to see. Since 2022, it has
provided 11.3 million HAF—holiday activities and food—days to
children and young people in this country. Across 2023, more than
5 million HAF days were provided during Easter, summer and winter
delivery. Based on reporting from local authorities, over winter
2023 more than 290,000 children attended the programme, of whom
more than 263,000 were funded directly by the HAF programme and
more than 229,000 received benefits-related free school meals. In
response to the hon. Member for York Central, there is a degree
of flexibility for individual school provision for eligibility
for that facility.
The HAF programme brings me to this point, which the hon. Member
for Newcastle upon Tyne North made in a different way. Of course,
we have to see everything in the round—the full support given to
families. In that context, the wider package of support,
particularly for the cost of living difficulties the country has
been through, is very relevant. That has been worth more than
£100 billion over 2022-23 to 2024-25. It remains the case that
pursuing policies that facilitate work and create jobs is the
single most important poverty-tackling policy that a Government
can have.
Colleagues, including the hon. Members for Twickenham and for
Washington and Sunderland West, brought up the important question
of auto-enrolment. We do want to make it as simple as possible
for schools and local authorities to determine eligibility and
for families to apply. That is why we have the eligibility
checking service. I am also aware of some of the innovative
things local authorities are doing to look at auto-enrolment. We
think there is merit in those projects, which we will look at
closely. We know that historically it has not been
straightforward to achieve auto-enrolment, but it is definitely
something we want to study further and learn from.
I am running short of time, but the hon. Member for Twickenham
asked about disability. We debated that subject in this Chamber a
few weeks ago, with some of the colleagues here today, and that
included reference to children receiving EOTAS: education
otherwise than at school. I am pleased to reiterate that we have
done what we committed to do: update guidance in that area,
particularly regarding children with disabilities, to make clear
the duty to make reasonable adjustments under relevant
legislation.
I hope I have conveyed the extent of free-meal support currently
in place under this Government, and how vital a role it plays,
ensuring that the most disadvantaged children receive the
nutrition they need to thrive. I again thank the hon. Member for
Twickenham for bringing this important debate to Westminster Hall
today and all colleagues for taking part.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the provision of free school
meals.
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