Free School Meals

Baroness Morris of Yardley Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, in relation to children in England, I have outlined the local government welfare assistance scheme. When schools came back properly, the box of fruit and vegetables scheme was also back running. The Government have extended free school meals; about 17% of children in England qualify for them. During the pandemic we extended eligibility to the children of parents who had no recourse to public funds, and in 2014 we introduced universal infant free school meals and free school meals for those in FE. The Government have not stood by but have supported, through other taxpayers’ taxes, vulnerable children during the pandemic.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, while I do not for a minute doubt the Minister’s personal understanding of this difficulty, I think she is wrong to say that it is not a postcode lottery. Today is half-term, and whether children will get a free school meal will depend on where they live. There are only two ways of making sure that that does not happen at Christmas: either to make it a statutory duty, which is the case with free school meals, or to offer ring-fenced funding. Unless the Government do one or the other of those things, this will continue to be a postcode lottery. Can the Minister assure us that the solution that the Government come forward with for the Christmas holidays will adopt one of those two solutions?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, who I thank for her comments, raises a wider issue. When power is devolved, whether to councils, combined authorities or different nations, we have to live with the fact that we will see different responses in different parts of the country. In relation to Scotland, it did not pay for free school meals during the recent October half-term. However, I will take away the noble Baroness’s comments.