Alison Bennett
Main Page: Alison Bennett (Liberal Democrat - Mid Sussex)Department Debates - View all Alison Bennett's debates with the Department for Education
(2 days, 17 hours ago)
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Liz Jarvis
The hon. Lady made an excellent point, and I trust the Minister will address it later in the debate.
One headteacher in my constituency who leads a school of over 600 pupils told me the only way he would be able to resource breakfast clubs is to extend the teachers’ directed time and remove some of the vital continuing professional development interventions and clubs that support disadvantaged pupils. He worries that he will have to cut back on those initiatives to free up time to run breakfast clubs.
Mrs Strong, headteacher at Chander’s Ford infant school, told me that, although the cost of school meals has increased, the funding schools receive has not kept pace.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
My hon. Friend makes a point that I want to draw out. Gattons infant school in Burgess Hill in my constituency is paid £2.53 per meal, but the caterers charge it £3.15 per meal, so there is a shortfall of 62p per meal per child per day, which amounts to £7,839 over a year. Added to that, the caterers now charge the school an additional £2,000 per year to take away all the waste from the meals. That is a colossal amount of money for a small infant school to sustain. Does my hon. Friend agree that schools should be compensated for the true cost of free school meals?
Liz Jarvis
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Schools are now being forced to subsidise meals from their already overstretched budgets, which takes away from vital resources such as staff salaries and school supplies.
For Chander’s Ford infant school, the cost of providing meals now exceeds Government funding by £1.11 per meal, forcing it to find another £31,468 out of its budget for the financial year. Schools should not be forced to cut services or make tough decisions to cover the cost of meals that should be fully funded.