Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Skills (Matthew Hancock)
It is a pleasure, Mr Crausby, to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey) on securing this debate. I discussed the matter with the Minister for Schools yesterday, and my hon. Friend will know that the two of us have ministerial responsibility for the matter, not least because of the importance of the 16-to-19 question, which is a subset to which my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) referred.
The nub of the debate is the right eligibility for the pupil premium. There is consensus in the Chamber that it is an unalloyed good policy, and I think there would also be consensus if a member of the Labour party were present. There is a good reason for that. The school meals service extends back to the mid-19th century, and was introduced by charities to ensure that disadvantaged children had the opportunity to eat at least one good meal a day. Since then, provision has been broadened to paid-for and Government-funded meals, but the aim remains of ensuring that families who struggle to afford to pay for school meals are helped to do so, not least because healthy meals and good nourishment make it easier for children to concentrate, and help them to be better behaved and more able to learn.
The key question of how to support free school meals and, through that, how to support and decide on allocations for the pupil premium is critical. The debate comes at a good time, as universal credit is introduced in pilot areas this month and will shortly be in full force. Eligibility for free school meals and therefore the pupil premium is a live issue and the Government have not yet announced exactly how that eligibility will match up, so it is a good time to have this debate.
We know that income matters, but the measure of poverty is important. The relative poverty measures that my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon mentioned do not in isolation provide an accurate picture of the experience of poverty in the UK. It is important when talking about eligibility not to compare raw poverty figures with eligibility because every measure of poverty is imperfect. Poverty based on relative poverty—40% of median income—is only one way of measuring it. For example, the latest figures show that 300,000 children moved out of poverty, in large part due to a drop in incomes at the top, not least because of taxation policy. The question of which poverty measures impact on the ground is therefore critical. An important consideration is that such measures need to be attuned enough so that financial allocations can be based on them. As a result, receipt of welfare of benefits has been seen as a more reliable basis for identifying disadvantage, not least because it can be proven easily by parents. Over the years, the list of qualifying benefits for free school meals has increased to ensure that the children who most need free school meals are entitled to them. My hon. Friend mentioned the change to the “ever 6” formula so that those entitled to free school meals during the past six years are eligible for the pupil premium, rather than only those who are currently entitled.
Sir Nick Harvey
The Minister’s point is that there are many different measures that could be used, and that the relative poverty figure is a percentage of the whole and thus prone to fluctuation from time to time. Nevertheless, can he not see the point made by the Children’s Society that, if the Government have an accepted measure of children living in poverty, it is strange to have free school meals based on measures that are so far apart from it that a significant proportion of those whom the Government deem to be in poverty are not entitled to the meals?
Matthew Hancock
The measure my hon. Friend refers to is one measure of poverty; it is not the measure of poverty. Crucially, however, the link between eligibility for free school meals and poverty is changing with the universal credit, as he said, and I shall come on to that in a second.
My hon. Friend set out what I want to put on record: the link between poverty of income, education or aspiration and the prediction of a child’s future life chances. The issue is important because disadvantage remains strongly associated with poor performance throughout school, a fact that provides the central driving mission of the reforms to education under this Government. We wish to close the attainment gap by improving the quality of education through a range of measures, not least the pupil premium; by improving schools through free schools and academies; and by improving the quality of teachers going into the profession, not only in schools in well-off areas but throughout the country. We in this Chamber agree on that central driver and on the many reforms that are taking place in order to achieve it. The link between free school meal eligibility and underachievement is strong. At every national level of educational attainment, pupils eligible for free school meals are at a lower stage than their peers.
Robert Halfon
Does my hon. Friend agree that that also applies to sixth-form students in colleges? Three times as many students at colleges are eligible for free school meals as students in maintained sixth forms. If we are serious about levelling the playing field, should we not concentrate our resources on those most in need, in particular those who go to sixth-form colleges?
Mr David Crausby (in the Chair)
Order. The Minister earlier referred to the absence of Opposition spokesmen, but I understand that “Erskine May” notes that these debates are personal to the Minister and the Member, so reference to the absence of Front-Bench spokesmen is not appropriate because they could not speak from the Front Bench in any case.
Matthew Hancock
I am terribly sorry. I was referring not to Front-Bench spokespeople but to any Opposition Members. I take your point, however, Mr Crausby.
On colleges, I understand the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow, but we need to be careful about what we wish for, because schools are not funded for the provision of free school meals to those over the age of 16, although they have a legal requirement to deliver them. Colleges have the 16-to-19 bursary fund to support those most in need, which can pay for anything, at the discretion of those colleges that receive it, including meals. A requirement on colleges to provide free meals to students who are eligible for them—in schools, funding is not provided to do that—would fetter the discretion of those administering the funds provided for bursaries. We therefore need to be careful about how we look at this important question.
I understand the point made about the spending on the pupil premium being spread more thinly or, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon said, diluting it by extending its reach into younger years. We all understand the importance of early years, which is backed up strongly by the evidence, but we have already increased funding to early years education: 20% of two-year-olds now have a commitment of 15 hours of funded education a week from this September, rising to 40% next September, with the funding increasing to £760 million per annum in 2014-15. We have a responsibility to primary schools not to dilute their agreed funding. I understand the argument, but the question is how best to deliver for early years; our preference is to extend the breadth of the target group reached by the premium in the age ranges covered.
Sir Nick Harvey
The dilution I was talking about was spreading the premium to a larger number of entitled children, not taking it to a lower age.
Matthew Hancock
In either case, the increase in the funding over the past couple of years has gone not only to broaden the eligibility, for which my hon. Friend is calling, but to increase the rate. A balance has been struck between the two, and the premium now reaches about a quarter of all pupils, compared with 18% in 2011-12. Furthermore, we cannot identify the children concerned unless they have been registered as eligible at some point in the previous six years, hence the introduction of the “ever 6” extension and our work to improve take-up, for example with a new online facility for local authorities to contact the Department to find out about eligibility.
I now turn to the crucial point of the introduction of universal credit. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon said, the under-registration rate for free school meals is remarkably low in Devon, at only 3%. I commend those concerned, such as those working in the local authority, for that extremely good rate; in Devon, we have identified only about 300 children eligible for free school meals who do not claim them, which is one of the lowest rates in the country. The question, however, is what we do when we introduce universal credit.
Crucially, universal credit includes low-income working families, which is not currently the case in consideration of free school meals, because those on working tax credit are excluded, although they will be included in universal credit. In order to make work pay, universal credit will ensure that reduction by withdrawal of benefits is done in a way that does not stop work paying. The case of free school meals, put so powerfully by my hon. Friend, matters because we have to look at the marginal withdrawal rate of all state benefits, and the free school meal is a benefit in kind. We will take that important consideration into account.
The universal credit reforms give us the opportunity for such consideration, and it is taking place right now, so my hon. Friend’s speech was extremely timely as well as powerfully put. I will ensure that those examining the matter see the transcript of the debate in Hansard, and I am sure that he will make the point directly to other Ministers as well, including the Minister for Schools. We have to get things right, because the pupil premium is an important policy, and we must ensure that it is fairly distributed and gets to the people who need it most.