Free School Meals

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Thursday 5th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Gateshead South) (Lab)]

I have chaired the all-party parliamentary group on school food since setting it up in 2010, so I know all too well the many benefits of free school meals, from the economic to health benefits—it is why I have campaigned for more than 18 years to extend free school meal provision. Providing more children than ever with free, healthy, hot and nutritious meals can be truly life changing. In my constituency, the provision will extend to a further 5,460 children, which is very welcome indeed, so I thank the Minister and our Government. Does the Minister agree that this down payment on the child poverty strategy is only the start of this Government’s mission to lift as many children out of poverty as possible, just as the previous Labour Government did?

[Stephen Morgan]

My hon. Friend has been a real champion on school food issues ever since she was elected to this place. I had the pleasure of meeting her recently, along with campaigners she suggested I meet on these very points, so I know that her lobbying has directly influenced our outcomes today. We are making this announcement because of tough and necessary decisions that the Chancellor has had to make. It is a step in the right direction, and we will set out more detail on the child poverty strategy in due course.

Free School Meals (Automatic Registration of Eligible Children) Bill

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 14th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[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.

SEND Provision

Sharon Hodgson Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Gateshead South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Betts. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) on securing this very important debate.

It has been widely noted that SEND provision came up significantly on the doorsteps during the general election. The statement from the then Conservative Education Secretary earlier this year that SEND provision had reached a crisis point only further reinforced what we already knew—but it was under their watch.

No one wants to say, “I told you so,” but as the shadow Minister during the passage of the Bill that became the Children and Families Act 2014—the Act that brought in education, health and care plans—I did, many times. This crisis is exactly what I, as shadow Minister, along with many from the education, voluntary and charity sectors who supported me with many amendments, all predicted. The crisis we are in now was entirely predictable. It is a damning indictment that, after 14 years in power, this is the state that the Conservatives left SEND provision in.

Between 2019 and 2023, the number of EHCPs issued rose by 72%, but shockingly, dedicated SEND funding only rose by 42%. That is just one stat of many that I could give. The lack of funding, the delays and the de-prioritisation of children with SEND is a stain on our society.

I know from the challenges I face in my own family that the impact on children’s self-confidence, self-esteem and education can be life-changing. I, like many here, have had first-hand experience of the impact that underfunded and disjointed SEND support can have, because my son Joseph is severely dyslexic. His experience opened my eyes and has given me a lifelong passion, throughout my 19 years as an MP, to do something about the challenges that children with SEND experience in accessing support, and the variation in the quality of support that children experience across the country. It really is a postcode lottery.

Joseph was eventually statemented aged 10. I will not go into his journey, but two decades on, children who are now entering the education system are having the same experiences as he did. Nothing has improved. I have had many conversations with the British Dyslexia Association recently—I was chair of the all-party parliamentary group for dyslexia and other specific learning difficulties. One of the reasons that teachers struggle is the lack of training. Due to time I cannot expand on that, but I am sure others will.