Universal Credit: Free School Meals

Baroness Boycott Excerpts

Thursday 21st February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, the Government should support people in the most vulnerable state. That is why we used the same statistics as the DWP, which produces annual estimates and said that the rate of material deprivation for children has never been lower than the current figure of 11%.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, will the Government consider rolling out the free school meals programme more widely in the next few months as we go through Brexit? Indications suggest that food prices will rise, rather than go down. There are categories of children whose parents are in dire poverty but they do not receive free school meals. All children of parents living here under immigrant status do not get free school meals either. For families in poverty, they are a true lifeline. Will the Government think about rolling them out, at least for the summer term while some of this settles down?

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

My Lords, it might be worth pointing out this week’s ONS statistics, which show a rather more positive figure on employment: 32.6 million people in this country are now employed. That is 167,000 more than between July and September 2018, and 440,000 more than a year ago. We take child poverty very seriously. We also encourage schools, through the use of the pupil premium, to encourage additional recruitment to the programme.