Free School Meals (Automatic Registration of Eligible Children) Bill
(1 day, 16 hours ago)
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Peter Lamb (Crawley) (Lab)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I am very grateful for my good fortune in having the chance to introduce a Bill in my first year as a Member of this House and to seek to address, in part, one of my greatest policy concerns: childhood poverty. The previous Labour Government made reducing child poverty one of their most significant missions in office, and research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies has demonstrated that without the changes they made to benefits, child poverty would have increased by more than a quarter by 2010—instead, it fell by more than a quarter. It was a remarkable achievement under the circumstances.
Unfortunately, the actions of the Conservatives in the years since have reversed much of that good work. Today, in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, almost a third of our children—innocents who have no control whatsoever over their personal circumstances—are living in poverty. Harold Wilson famously said that the Labour party is
“a moral crusade or it is nothing.”
If this Government are to be judged on anything over the next five years, let it be how they treat the most vulnerable members of our society.
Like many Members of my party, I have found the decision not to immediately lift the two-child benefit cap extremely painful. We do not need further reports on how this policy was one of the most significant drivers of child poverty under the previous Government; at this point, I do not believe the bookshelves of the House of Commons Library could support any more evidence, were it to be submitted. However, I do accept that £3.2 billion cannot simply be found overnight. If we are serious about ending childhood poverty, we need to consider all the issues in the round, and the child poverty taskforce is a vital part of ensuring that limited public money is used most effectively to address this crisis.
What can we do here today, while we await the findings of the taskforce, to try to improve the conditions of children living in poverty? Members will be aware that private Member’s Bills cannot authorise new expenditure, and I do not seek to challenge that. This Bill seeks simply to ensure that the children whom this House has already stated should receive free school meals receive them automatically, unless their parents actively opt out of the system. It will not require a penny more in expenditure than is necessary to fulfil the social contract that generations of Parliaments have sustained with our poorest children.
The requirement to qualify for free school meals is a combined household income of £7,400 or less—an income of roughly half the average rent in my constituency. I find it hard to believe that it is possible to sustain a household on such a low income. It is these children the Bill seeks to support. The stories we hear of child poverty are heartbreaking, not only because of the hunger and the impact on children’s performance at school, but because of the stigma, with stories of children pretending to bring food out of their bags so that they can fit in with their friends at school, even when there is nothing available.
Shaun Davies (Telford) (Lab)
Us former council leaders have to stick together. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for bringing forward this Bill. As I mentioned in my maiden speech, I was a recipient of free school meals myself. I remember that stigma; I remember getting a blue ticket when I went to get lunch with my friends, while they got a yellow one. The stigma is still with me today. It runs very deep in me. Does he agree that the Government’s child poverty taskforce has to consider everything in the round? We should welcome the Government’s announcements on free breakfast clubs and the roll-out of the trial of those clubs. Does he also agree that we need to see urgency from the Government and the Minister, as I am sure we will, to address this issue and to take a systematic look at families and children in poverty?
Peter Lamb
I absolutely agree. I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. The Government are doing a lot to try to address this issue, but that is not to say that we cannot do more. We hear those stories of stigma, with children pretending to bring food out of their bags so that they do not miss out or so that they fit in, even if they do not have the actual food. We should be glad that over the years since, the system of free school meals has changed, so that people cannot tell which children are in receipt of free school meals. I will come back to that point, but it hopefully has encouraged parents to make use of the option.
Free school meals are estimated to save roughly £500 a child. Against such a low income, that amount makes a huge difference. For a family affected by the child benefit cap, it would increase their income by a fifth or more. Why, given the difference that it could make to their household, is every eligible family not claiming? There is a range of reasons. In some cases, there is a belief that their children might be bullied due to being in receipt of a free school meal, as my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Shaun Davies) mentioned. If there is one immediate outcome of this debate, I hope it is to reinforce the message to parents that no one can now identify which child is on a free school meal. There is no stigma in claiming—please make the application.
We know also that the same barriers exist as with any other form of state support, where barriers of language, agency, awareness and ability ensure that those facing the greatest disadvantages in our society are the least likely to access the support available. These are the families who would benefit most from this legislation.
Leigh Ingham (Stafford) (Lab)
This Bill is so important exactly because of what my hon. Friend has just said. It removes administrative barriers that get in the way, but that can frequently be overcome sensibly. Importantly, it still provides an opt-out for parents, which is important, because not everybody would want to take this up for their child. Does he agree that this Government should do everything they can to remove any administrative barriers?
Peter Lamb
It has been a while since I looked at the numbers, but my understanding when I last looked was that the level of unclaimed benefits in our system is at least 10 times greater than the total value of benefit fraud. People are choosing not to access the support available by and large because of stigma or a lack of awareness, but the impact within our society is real, and we should be doing everything we can to reduce that stigma.
We all pay in so that there is a safety net for us when we need it and to ensure that other members of our community, our neighbours and the people we care about do not have to go without when they fall on difficult times. We should do everything possible to avoid the vilification that is disgustingly often put upon people simply because they are poor.
Beyond the moral argument, this measure is about the future of our country. Education is an investment in the future prosperity of our country and of our citizens. It is the bedrock of economic growth and of enabling people to live independent and successful lives. Auto-enrolment stands to improve educational outcomes in three ways. The most obvious is by reducing hunger, the impact of which upon concentration and educational performance is well known. School meals were introduced 120 years ago next year to ensure that children received at least one nutritious meal a day, so that they could function effectively.
Secondly, auto-enrolment would improve household incomes, and household income is positively correlated with educational outcomes. In fact, there is a double-digit improvement in performance at GCSE level between children in the lowest and second-lowest income deciles, and that improvement continues all the way up in decreasing amounts until we hit the third-highest decile, where for all the money spent on private schools, educational outcomes plateau across the top 30% of incomes.
Sam Rushworth (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for the speech he is making and for putting child poverty at its heart. On educational outcomes, does he agree that auto-enrolling children would mean that schools could take advantage of many of the gateway supports that are premised on how many children at a school are on free school meals? I am sure that, like me, he will have spoken to schools carrying a heavy level of debt that is school dinner debt, because they are having to provide meals for hungry children.
Peter Lamb
I agree with my hon. Friend. I am well aware of the amount of effort that local schools are having to make directly to deal with the consequences of financial deprivation. It is important that we try to ensure that the statistics on free school meals are accurate, because it is a gateway to support. It is also how we measure any number of indicators of poverty in our society. If there is a statistical link between some groups under-reporting compared with other groups, we will have inaccurate figures on where deprivation is in our society and how best to try to address that problem.
The last benefit of auto-enrolment relates to the pupil premium of £1,455 a pupil, which is designed to counter the impact of deprivation on educational outcomes. It is a payment that schools receive on the basis of the number of pupils in receipt of free school meals. Low uptake of free school meals is now directly limiting the funding available to those schools where it would make the most difference to educational outcomes.
As a Government who are ambitious for the education of our children and committed to securing high levels of economic growth, the failure to address these matters of deprivation is a hurdle that we have to clear if we are going to succeed. This is well recognised. The Education Committee recently reported:
“We consider that the arguments for auto-enrolment in free school meals for those children currently eligible are conclusive. In the interests of alleviating hunger in schools and improving health and educational outcomes for the poorest children, auto-enrolment must be brought in without delay.”
Pilots run by local authorities, which quite heavily bend the rules set by current legislation to try to get as many of their children registered as possible, have repeatedly shown over recent years the scale of under-registration and the impact that auto-enrolment could have, both for those families benefiting and for school funding in deprived communities. The Government’s own figures suggest that under-registration stands at a minimum of 11%, which is equivalent to a quarter of a million children, although research nationally and in my own constituency suggests that the overall figure could well be significantly higher.
It is worth noting that the £7,400 income threshold cuts off the overwhelming majority of children who are living in poverty in this country, who still do not qualify for free school meals. That should certainly be corrected in due course, but for now, this Bill would make the most amount of difference to the very poorest children, benefiting them, their families, their schools and—through improvements in educational outcomes—society at large.
I accept that the mess the new Government have inherited from the last Government and the economic uncertainty created by decisions currently being taken in Washington mean that it may be too much to expect a wholesale adoption of the policy today. However, I hope that the Minister—who has been generous with his time with me on this matter, and has demonstrated his commitment to increasing the uptake of free school meals—will be able to give a commitment that auto-enrolment will be given serious consideration as part of the work now being undertaken to bring an end to childhood poverty in the United Kingdom. I also hope that today’s debate will underline the support among Members of this House for bringing about this change on behalf of our most vulnerable constituents. Surely, the very least that our country has a right to expect of its Parliament is that we will ensure that the nation’s children are fed.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Gateshead South) (Lab)
It is a privilege to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Peter Lamb). I am so happy that his name was drawn in the private Member’s Bill ballot, and that he has chosen this excellent subject and most important topic for his Bill.
As my hon. Friend said, school food has been available for almost 120 years. That is thanks to an MP for Bradford —little known by most—called Fred Jowett, who introduced the concept in his private Member’s Bill in 1906. My hon. Friend follows in the footsteps of a great man, and I thank him for that. Free school meals have existed in one form or another for the best part of 80 years, meaning that countless generations of children have received a hot, nutritious meal at lunch time. They are life-changing for pupils—no one knows that better than I do. Growing up as a recipient of free school meals, from almost the day I started school to the day I left school, the knowledge that there would be food at lunch time gave my mam, me and my brothers the security that I would not be hungry going into the rest of the school day.
I echo the feelings of stigma that my hon. Friends the Members for Crawley and for Telford (Shaun Davies) have spoken about. I also recall having a different dinner ticket and, even worse, having a different meal queue to stand in. Our queue was served after the paid-for children were served; it is horrifying, I know. I am glad to say that that does not happen any more—children are not separated in such an abhorrent way—but the stigma is still very real and alive today, no matter how hard schools try to alleviate it through cashless systems and so on. Ask any child in school, “Who are the children on free school meals?”, and they will look to them straightaway. They all know. I have been to many schools over 20 years; I always ask them, and they always nod sheepishly that they know—sometimes because they are that very child, but sometimes because they know who those other children are. That stigma never leaves you; it stays with you, and in the sixth richest economy in the world, we should not be subjecting our children in school to that stigma any longer.
We are all aware of the countless, cross-cutting benefits of free school meals, so I will not waste the House’s time by relisting them all; I will only say that, from increased attendance to attainment and more, free school meals are a multifaceted policy with widespread benefits across society. I am proud to be the founder and current chair of the all-party parliamentary group on school food since 2010. The group was instrumental in shaping the universal infant free school meals scheme, along with the authors of the school food plan, Henry Dimbleby and John Vincent, and we are still in discussion on the best delivery of the universal primary breakfast club programme. We—I, the MPs involved and all the stakeholders, who I think number 300 now—all want the early adopter to be a huge success.
The all-party parliamentary group met only yesterday, and the Wilson Room was packed. The group is always well attended by school food stakeholders: we had around 50 in attendance yesterday, but I have known us to fill Committee Room 14 with 80 to 100 attendees, and I hope the Minister knows he has an open invitation to attend when his diary allows.
The early adopter scheme, due to roll out to the first 750 schools this April, will show us where lessons can be learned for a smooth introduction to all primary schools next year—but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley has already said, this Government can and should go further. We can make marginal, low-cost improvement to the statutory free school meals scheme that we already have by introducing an opt-out system, as outlined in the Bill. We will capture around 200,000 children who are eligible for this crucial support but are not currently receiving it. Admin barriers should not mean that one in 10 students whose household income is already below the £7,400 threshold before benefits, miss out on free school meals support when they need it most.
This auto-enrolment Bill cannot be seen as extra spending. Government funding already exists for the children who are not claiming this statutory support, so it is the lowest of low-hanging fruit. Moreover, increased free school meals uptake unlocks, as we have heard, a whole host of other benefits, including vital pupil premium funding of up to £1,455 extra per child. If this House wants to talk about better education funding, surely unlocking funding that already exists is the most logical and economically efficient way of doing that?
In closing, extending free school meals by automatic registration to these most needy 200,000 children should be a no-brainer for any Government and a moral imperative for this Labour Government. I hope to see this Government and this Minister rectify that at their earliest opportunity.
Mike Wood (Kingswinford and South Staffordshire) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Crawley (Peter Lamb) on promoting this Bill so ably. The last Conservative Government massively expanded eligibility for free school meals, meaning that the proportion of children and young people eligible is much higher than was the case under any previous Government. The evidence here proves that the inheritance we left behind in this area last July was much kinder than that which the last Labour Government left us in 2010, with one in three children able to get a free school meal—as opposed to one in six when the previous Labour Government was last in office—despite a large fall in the number of workless households.
Sam Rushworth
We see in the bodies of children increased stunting, with the average 10-year-old 1 cm shorter than they were in 2010. How does that square with what the Minister is saying? We see a malnutrition crisis.
Mike Wood
When we look at dietary habits in recent decades, we see that that is not confined to parts of the income spectrum. There has been a deterioration in the quality of diets going back over several decades that is quite separate from issues of poverty.
As of January 2024, more than 2.1 million pupils were eligible for benefits-related free school meals, which amounted to 24.6% of all pupils. In addition, more than 90,000 disadvantaged students in further education received a free school meal at lunch time. Collectively, this supported the children and young people who needed it most to ensure that they could make the most of their world-class education, boost their health and save their parents considerable amounts that they could not afford.
Mike Wood
I really must continue. The Government have promised to move on to the next Bill at quarter to two, so I need to keep interventions to a minimum.
We 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 would retain their entitlement and keep getting free school meals until the end of the phase; in other words, until they complete either primary or secondary school if their family’s income rises above the income threshold such that that would otherwise have stopped.
On breakfast clubs, we all know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, setting people up with the fuel they need to make the most of the day ahead, and the evidence supports that. At this point, Madam Deputy Speaker, I ought to declare an interest. My wife is in teaching, although she is providing one-to-one special needs teaching rather than in a classroom at the moment. We know that those children who do not have breakfast are more likely to have issues with behaviour, wellbeing and learning. That is why the previous Government expanded the provision of breakfast, investing up to £35 million in the national school breakfast programme. That funding supported 2,700 schools in disadvantaged areas, providing thousands of children from low-income families with a free nutritious breakfast at school to support their attainment, wellbeing and readiness to learn. Moreover, we trusted school leaders to deliver, building a breakfast provision that fitted the needs of their pupils. That involved five different models, ranging from a traditional breakfast club to a healthy grab and go. The programme has had great success in supporting those who needed it most and I welcome the Minister’s confirmation that his party will continue to support it until at least next March. I hope the support extends past that date.
Nutrition does not cease to be an issue outside of term time, which is why the previous Government rolled out the holiday, activities and food programme to support during holiday periods disadvantaged and low-income families in receipt of free school meals. Since 2018, the programme has delivered enriching activities and nutritious food to the children and young people who need it most, with more than £200 million each year delivering 15.6 million half days to children and young people across every single one of the 153 local authorities in England.
The Bill requires local authorities in England to identify each child of school age resident in its area who is eligible for free school meals. It also requires state-funded schools that identify a child who is eligible to provide those meals. We support the desire to ensure that all those eligible for free school meals have an opportunity to receive them, so do not wish to prevent the Bill from proceeding. However, I have a couple of questions about how the Bill will achieve that, which I hope that the Bill’s promoter can address in his closing remarks so that Members can consider that as the Bill proceeds.
I know that the hon. Member for Crawley has extensive experience in local government, and I think that 20 local authorities have now piloted their own auto-enrolment schemes at some point. In drafting the Bill, what consideration did he give to the burden that will be added to local authorities? Does he have any assessment or measure of the cost for local council tax payers and how that relates to both the savings for local families and the additional income for schools through pupil premiums?
The Bill would also give powers to the Secretary of State to make regulations to make provision for the definition of the term “state-funded school”. In what circumstances does the hon. Member believe that a change in definition will be necessary?
I will be clear, as we were in government, that we believe in targeting support to where it is most needed. We believe that the state should do less but do it well—but that does include delivering sufficient support to those who need it most, and particularly to children and young people.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Stephen Morgan)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Peter Lamb) for his Bill and for providing the opportunity to consider the importance that free, nutritious meals have in breaking the link between background and achievement. He is a true champion for his constituents and for children and families across the country. I was delighted to meet him to discuss the Bill and hear how passionate he is about our opportunity mission. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Gateshead South (Mrs Hodgson), who has been a champion for free school meal provision in this place for a considerable time. I also thank her for her leadership on the APPG.
I am proud to serve under this mission-driven Government who are breaking down the barriers to opportunity for every child in every part of our country. We currently spend about £1.5 billion annually on free lunches for 2.1 million school pupils under benefits-based free school meals alongside over 90,000 disadvantaged students in further education and about 1.3 million infants under universal infant free school meals.
We consider the aim of those measures at their core to be to ensure that those who need it get the support that they are entitled to, which is a goal that we are supportive of. Free lunch programmes provide pupils with essential nutrition, support attendance and ultimately ensure that pupils can concentrate, learn and get the most out of their education. They are essential to breaking down barriers to opportunity and tackling child poverty: a task that is more important than ever as a result of the legacy of rising child poverty left behind by the previous Government. Shamefully, there are 700,000 more children in poverty than in 2010, and over 4 million children are now growing up in a low-income family. That is why I am proud of a new ministerial taskforce that is working urgently to develop a child poverty strategy to address that.
The child poverty taskforce is considering a range of levers to tackle child poverty, including key cost drivers for households such as food, to develop a comprehensive strategy that will be published later this year. That is in addition to action that we are already taking to deliver on our mission to break down barriers to opportunity by rolling out free breakfast clubs in every state-funded primary school, providing food and childcare to children and to socialise them before the school day as well as put more money back into parents’ pockets—on average £450 a year. Further, the holiday activities and food programme, which is established in every local authority area in England and delivers vital support to children and families during school holidays, will again receive more than £200 million in 2025-26.
We facilitate the claiming of free meals by providing the eligibility checking system, a digital portal available to local authorities that makes verifying eligibility for free lunches quick and simple. I can tell the House that the checking system has been redesigned to allow parents and schools to check eligibility independently from their local authorities. This system will make it quicker and easier to check eligibility for school meals, and has the potential to further boost take-up by families meeting the eligibility criteria.
Further to that, my Department is aware of a range of measures that are being implemented by local authorities to boost the take-up of free lunches. We welcome locally led approaches and I am personally keen to learn from them. By working directly with their communities, local authorities can overcome the barriers to registering and take action to ensure that families have access to the support for which they are eligible, subject to those activities meeting legal requirements, including those on data protection.
To support those local efforts, my Department is working with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology on exploring legal gateways that can enable better data sharing. In the meantime, we will continue to engage with a range of stakeholders, including families and young people, as I have done personally, to understand the barriers for households that meet the criteria for a free lunch but are not claiming them, including through working closely with local authorities to understand the approaches that they have taken.
In conclusion, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley for bringing forward this Bill. We all agree that it addresses a matter of great importance. I hope it is apparent from my remarks that the Government are supportive of the aims of the Bill. We are working with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to explore legal gateways that could enable better data sharing, and there is further consideration of improving free school meal enrolment through the work of the child poverty taskforce. This Government are determined to break down the barriers to opportunity for every child. Our work to simplify enrolment is important to achieving that aim. We are confident that the actions I have outlined will improve take-up of free meals, alongside the local work being trialled by many local authorities across the country. For that reason, I hope that my hon. Friend can be encouraged to withdraw his Bill while we continue to explore enrolment and keep free school meals under review.
Bambos Charalambous (Southgate and Wood Green) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Peter Lamb) on his private Member’s Bill on this very important topic, and on his excellent speech.
It is a well-established fact that good nutrition is essential for children’s brain development and learning. When children go to school without eating a nutritious meal, or eating at all, it has a detrimental effect on their behaviour and educational performance. Barnardo’s latest research, “Nourishing the Future”, found that
“1 in 3 schools said hunger and food insecurity was impacting on children’s ability to learn, including poor concentration, tiredness and behavioural problems.”
As a school governor, I know the challenges that schools face in dealing with challenging behaviour and getting children to learn, so anything that helps improve behaviour and learning is to be welcomed.
Free school meals are meant to be a lifeline for low-income families. They are meant to ensure that the most disadvantaged children in society get a free nutritious meal every day that they are in school, to help them concentrate, learn and achieve. However, according to the Child Poverty Action Group, over 900,000 children across the UK do not qualify for free school meals because of restrictive qualifying criteria. According to the Food Foundation, a further 250,000 eligible children are missing out on free school meals for a variety of reasons, including lack of awareness, stigma or embarrassment, the complexity of the forms—the Minister referred to the previous checking system—or language barriers.
The fact that obtaining free school meals is an opt-in process, requiring parents or carers to apply, is itself a barrier. If we want our children to flourish, thrive and get the best start in life, that needs to change. As the Minister mentioned, one of the Labour party’s five missions is to break down barriers to opportunity, and I believe this is one of those barriers. The solution is auto-enrolment for free school meals, as set out in the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley. However, he is not the only person to call for such a change; that call has come from many quarters. In 2021, the Conservative Government commissioned Henry Dimbleby, co-founder of the restaurant chain Leon, to produce a food strategy for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Recommendation 4 of the strategy was to extend eligibility for free school meals, and one of the three ways to achieve that recommendation was to:
“Enrol eligible children for free school meals automatically.”
The rationale for that recommendation was that
“even eligible children are often missing out. Currently, FSMs are ‘opt-in’: parents have to know about the scheme and apply for it. The effect of this is that, according to a 2013 estimate by the DfE, 11% of children entitled to FSMs do not receive them.”
In the benefits section of recommendation 4, it was noted that:
“This would have benefits for those children’s health, but also for their educational achievement. Following one pilot of universal free school meals in 2009–11, primary school pupils made between four and eight weeks’ more progress than expected. Pupils from poorer families and those who had previously done less well at school showed the most improvement.”
It was stated that there were clear education and health benefits in children having a nutritious free school meal—and that came from the Conservative Government’s food strategy. Sadly, as with many of the recommendations, auto-enrolment was not implemented.
More recently, the Education Committee’s “Scrutiny of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill” report of 28 February states at paragraph 35
“that the arguments for auto-enrolment in free school meals for those children currently eligible are conclusive. In the interests of alleviating hunger in schools and improving health and educational outcomes for the poorest children, auto-enrolment must be brought in without delay.”
We are lucky in London that the Mayor of London, Sir Sadiq Khan, has agreed to fund free lunches for all London’s children in state primary schools, which is already making a difference to children’s educational outcomes. It is a shame that this policy does not apply to secondary schools too, but in the absence of such a policy, auto-enrolment is the best way to ensure all eligible children get the free school meals that they are entitled to and deserve. If we are to ensure that children get the best start in life, learn and thrive at school and achieve to their full potential, auto-enrolling of eligible children on to free school meals is the best way forward. We need to remove that barrier to opportunity, and this would, at a stroke, make a huge difference to those children’s lives.
The Government are already doing many good things in education, and the announcement of the breakfast club early adopters was warmly welcomed by me and, I am sure, colleagues on both sides of the House. I hope that the Government will adopt this policy, because it helps alleviate child poverty, is good for children, and is the right thing to do.
I hear what the Minister said about the child poverty taskforce strategy, and look forward to it reporting later in the year on what it would do to challenge child poverty. Data sharing is obviously to be welcomed, and I know that the Government will do all they can to ensure that all eligible children get the free school meals that they deserve, to help them learn and thrive.
Shaun Davies (Telford) (Lab)
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Peter Lamb) for bringing forward this private Member’s Bill on a process that, as a former council leader, I saw as a bureaucratic, red-tape nightmare. Children eligible for free school meals were not accessing them simply because a form was not filled in. Even though local authorities, schools and communities knew exactly who those children were, bureaucracy was getting in the way. I was pleased to hear the Minister say at the Dispatch Box that he is working with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to look at ways in which data sharing and passported benefit checks could be used to ensure that more children get food.
However, this must be looked at in the round. I heard from a constituent this week who has just taken their child out of a breakfast club because the cost of the club has gone up by £15 a week. Sadly, that school is not one of the 750 early adopters of breakfast clubs, but it will benefit from that policy initiative as it is rolled out. It is an excellent initiative and we should be proud of it. We should call on the Government to go harder, faster, in implementing the policy.
Some 900,000 more children in working households were living in poverty in 2023 than in 2010. That means that 1,350 children entered poverty every single week for the first 13 years the Conservatives were in power. In my area, Telford, absolute poverty rose from 14.9% to 18.4% between 2014 and 2023, and we know that a huge number of families who are not included in the poverty figures were also struggling to make ends meet.
Ultimately, we need an economy that is growing and getting people into work so that the poverty trap can be removed. Like the shadow Minister, I declare an interest: my wife is a primary school teacher in Telford. She tells me about the direct contrast between the children she teaches now and the cohort that she taught when she started 20 years ago. Children are coming in with major social issues, and those social issues have to be addressed as a whole.
The Government also need to consider the huge regional inequality in deprivation. Child poverty in some parts of the country went down under the last Conservative Government, but in my region it soared. We need to engage with councils and, where applicable, with combined authorities and mayors to ensure a systematic approach.
Claire Hughes (Bangor Aberconwy) (Lab)
My hon. Friend mentions working with regions. May I add a point about nations? In Wales, all primary school children have been eligible for free school meals since September last year. Does my hon. Friend agree that in designing the roll-out of free school meals in England, the UK Government could learn from the experience in Wales?
Shaun Davies
I absolutely agree. My county borders Wales, so I know Wales very well indeed. The Westminster Government should absolutely learn from the Welsh Labour Government’s approach to child poverty, and to inequality more generally. We should congratulate and acknowledge the work of Welsh Labour in that space.
I welcome the previous Government’s household support fund and its extension by this Government. As a council leader and as chair of the Local Government Association, I worked with Conservative Ministers on the fund. The approach and ideals were absolutely right, but the one-year duration means that the money is not being used to the best possible extent. That goes back to the point about the importance of a cross-ministerial taskforce looking at the issue in the round.
We have heard a lot this week, from the Prime Minister downwards, about the need for delivery, about urgent action and about the ability to make a difference and demonstrate change. As a Labour Government, we cannot be in a position where, in four or five years’ time, we point to bureaucracy and red tape as the reason why we have not made a huge impact on the lives of the poorest children in our country.
Sam Rushworth (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
I am grateful for the opportunity that the Bill provides to put on record the importance of discussing the scourge of child poverty in our country, particularly as it relates to children’s nutrition. It is a simple fact that the height of an average five-year-old increased progressively until 2013 but has since reversed; children aged five are shorter today than in the past. We face a dual burden: not only stunting, but obesity. We have seen a 30% increase in obesity since 2006 and a 22% increase in teenagers with type 2 diabetes since 2017.
All of this points to the poverty of children’s diets in this country. When we have this conversation, for me it is never a matter of what we can afford to do; we cannot afford not to do something about it, because the knock-on in the NHS is immense, and the knock-on in future work days missed by the next generation will be immense. It is a sad reality that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Peter Lamb) said, in a typical UK classroom one third of children will be living in relative poverty. Children are also the group most likely to be living in cold homes in this country.
Probably the most startling statistic from my county of Durham, which really shows what austerity has done to our children over the last decade and a half, is the 250% increase in the number of children in the care system. The cost of that for the local taxpayer is immense, as is the human and social cost for those children. But somewhere between being in the care system and being a happy child with a healthy life are many children who live in conditions of neglect. That is why it is so important that the state and schools sometimes do the work to provide what children are not getting in the home.
I hope that the child poverty taskforce will report soon, and we will see some positive change. I welcome the breakfast clubs introduced by the Government, which will make a difference not only to ensuring that children start the day well fed and having settled, but to the cost of living. I met a constituent a few months ago who shared with me that it cost her £400 a month just to pay for her children to be looked after from 7.30 till the start of the school day. That was having a massive impact on her, so for her, that breakfast club is an extra £400 a month, and I am grateful for that.
What is being proposed today is a modest and sensible tweak that addresses the challenge of children not being enrolled. I am grateful to the Minister for saying that the Government will look at this issue, because we cannot afford to allow a generation of children to grow up as they are right now.
Leigh Ingham (Stafford) (Lab)
The Bill aims to make a meaningful and lasting difference to the lives of children across our country. We must come together to focus on the future of our young people, understanding that the way we invest in them today is how we shape our society of tomorrow. The Government have been clear in their commitment to address child poverty—I welcome that—and the work already being done through the ministerial taskforce, which is shaping a long-term strategy to bring about change. That commitment was also evident in the King’s Speech, which announced further investment in children’s wellbeing through the introduction of breakfast clubs, which I also welcome.
Financial support for the least well-off is another key element of our approach. As a former councillor, I know that the additional £1 billion allocated in the most recent Budget to the household support fund will allow local authorities to provide targeted help to those who need it most. We must always ensure that support for families is not just well intentioned but well delivered. That is why the Bill is so important. It removes unnecessary barriers, streamlining the process so that every eligible child is automatically registered for the help to which they are entitled. No family should have to navigate unnecessary bureaucracy or miss out due to a lack of awareness. At the same time, the Bill respects parental choice, which is incredibly important.
It is essential to recognise that the most effective way to reduce poverty and improve life chances is by focusing on long-term, sustainable economic growth. By fostering a strong economy we can boost household incomes and ensure that public services remain well funded and effective. The long-term vision must always be to create an environment where families can thrive, children can reach their full potential, and the cycle of poverty can be broken for good.
While we work towards that vision, it is important to continue implementing practical, well targeted measures, such as those in the Bill, that can bring about immediate improvements. The decisions we make today will shape the society we live in tomorrow.
Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)
Before I entered this place, I worked on poverty for the Child Poverty Action Group, Oxfam and Church Action on Poverty. Back in 2010, there was cross-party consensus that we should end child poverty. Gordon Brown referred to it as his guiding mission. Should we return to that time?
Leigh Ingham
I completely agree. Gordon Brown was a wonderful Prime Minister.
To conclude, the Bill represents a crucial step in our ongoing commitment to tackling child poverty.
Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Christian Wakeford.)
Debate to be resumed on Friday 11 July.