Support for Children Entitled to Free School Meals

Catherine West Excerpts

Wednesday 26th May 2021 Westminster Hall

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered support for children entitled to free school meals.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq.

The UK is a rich country. As a G7 nation with a GDP that many countries can only look at in envy, we simply must do more to provide for our own citizens and combat the ever-increasing levels of child poverty. With huge wealth in many parts of the country and an economy with the most potential in Europe, we can do far better than we are, and MPs should not need to apply for debates such as the one we are having today. However, across the country and in this very city, the richest 1% live a gilded life, a handful of streets away from the most deprived neighbourhoods in the most unequal areas. We live on the same streets; we walk the same streets; but we inhabit different worlds. We are a deeply unequal society, and the fact that so many families rely on the meagre support available from the state to feed their children is nothing short of a national outrage. It is a clear demonstration that our economic system is not working for so many.

In some local authority areas, child poverty is reaching 50%, while the wealth of the richest 1% has grown exponentially. As per The Sunday Times’ rich list, printed last Sunday, the richest man in the country saw his wealth grow by £7 billion last year, while in my own borough of Haringey, some 8,000 children—a staggering 29%—rely on free school meals. That figure has increased by 1,700 over the past year. The Trussell Trust has said that over 50% of those using its food banks had never used one before this year, so we are seeing a huge increase. Some 1 million eight to 17-year-olds visited a food bank in the months of December and January—I would like the Minister to dwell on that for a moment. We see this stark inequality among many families in every part of London, and not just in London: people are relying on state support to feed their children, not through any fault of their own but as a damning indictment of the soaring cost of living and the broken economic system. Families are facing above-inflation increases in water and fuel bills and the Government’s council tax increases, and family budgets are at breaking point.

Outside London, Labour analysis has shown that the number of children eligible for free schools meals has increased in nearly every region and nation of the UK. It would be wrong to say that this rise in entitlement is purely down to the pandemic. Analysis released in March by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has shown that child poverty had been increasing for six years before the pandemic hit, with three quarters of children growing up in poverty being from a working family. That is because many people are being paid paltry national minimum wage levels. Where families get the London living wage, or the living wage outside of London, it increases the likelihood that they will be able to pay for nutritious food. The shadow Education Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), is right to say that feeding kids is not a half-time activity—a reference to Marcus Rashford.

What is also clear beyond any doubt is the wider and life-long impact of the poverty and deprivation faced by children eligible for free school meals. While these children will have support during school hours, for other parts of the week and throughout the year when they are not in school, they face going hungry and their attainment, health and prospects will suffer. As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on school food, my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), has shown in this House over a number of years, statistics have repeatedly shown that this has a serious impact on the rest of a child’s education, with far lower numbers of those on free school meals attending university, compared with their peers who are not.

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

The hon. Lady has outlined the fact that child poverty is rising, and has been rising for a number of years. In light of that, does she share my shock and disappointment that today at Prime Minister’s questions, the Prime Minister said that child poverty was falling, showing that he does not actually understand the scale of the problem, much less how to fix it?

[Catherine West]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I am not sure whether it is ignorance, or not wanting to tell the truth. All who have signed up to this debate know what our inboxes are showing, what our constituents tell us when they walk in the door, and we know that things are getting worse. One of the poor health outcomes is on people’s teeth. Research from the British Dental Association has shown that 11% of children in England have tooth decay by three years old, which rises to 23% by the time they are five and reaching school. Even though this is completely preventable, it continues to be the No. 1 reason why children aged five to nine are admitted to hospital in the UK. With a rise in free school-meal entitlement because of grinding levels of child poverty, this is no surprise.

Problems with teeth can have an impact on a child’s ability to sleep, concentrate in school or develop good speech and language skills. We need to take action and be bold in our approach through a less threadbare welfare system and a more generous system of school meals provision. We also know the importance of action before school, such as breakfast clubs. As a former council leader, I wanted to know which schools did not have a breakfast club so I could ask them to put one on. Not only do they help working families to have children in school on time and have an early start, they also show that where breakfast is of a high quality, it helps enormously with academic achievement and concentration. Teachers say that, with good nutrition, children’s behaviour is good right through into the afternoon. My hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock), who used to be a teacher, will confirm that. Likewise, after-school activities should provide healthy options because, for some children who are in school for many, many hours, this could be the only hot meal—at lunchtime and then in the afternoon—that they might have, so it is incredibly important.

Members in this House have championed the need to address school holiday hunger, and I hope that the national food strategy will focus the minds of Minsters on that, so that we address what is going to be a very long break this summer, with many people on really low incomes.

I will conclude soon, but I am sure the points that I have made are abundantly clear. In response to the very good debate earlier this week on a similar topic, I will make a short point. We do not want to make this particular topic very party political. We want everyone to pull together, but sadly when the Prime Minister mentions that child poverty is reducing, and we know that child poverty is not reducing, that is when it becomes political. When a footballer has to lead the charge because many MPs vote against children having nutritional food during the school holidays that is when it becomes something that really hits home, and something we must do something about.

In conclusion, this is the prescription for the levels of child poverty that we are seeing: first, to make the £20 universal credit uplift permanent; secondly, more help for families with fuel bills, water bills and council tax; thirdly, high-quality debt advice—too many households rely on buy now, pay later financial products, which quickly become unaffordable; fourthly, help with housing costs—too many families spend over a third of their income on expensive rent payments. Shelter, the charity that specialises in housing, recommends no more than 35%, but far too many families are spending way over 35% on housing payments, which does not leave enough to pay for food. Fifthly, childcare costs: if a family has two children in childcare, the cost is often more than rent, so that needs to be urgently addressed.

Britain’s children deserve better. We have the wealth in our society to deliver a better society for all our citizens. We need a Government with a heart to act. I implore the Minister to do her utmost to address this full-on. We must not sit on our hands; it cannot take any further debates or votes in Parliament. Do what is right. Work with us and implement the policies that we need to be a real and noticeable help to families.

--- Later in debate ---

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

Thank you for your indulgence, Dr Huq. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) on securing the debate. At the heart of this issue, Marcus Rashford scored the most important goal of his career, using his platform to highlight that food poverty is not restricted just to school term times. It was a campaign of which any left winger wearing red would be proud.

I will argue that support for children who are entitled to free school meals should be about far more than just the food, because when schools closed, it was not just lunch that disadvantaged children missed out on, but connectivity. Through the lockdown, millions of children started the day with Joe Wicks’ online exercise classes. They completed schoolwork sent remotely by their teachers, and they joined their classmates in live remote-learning lessons. It was not perfect, but it was an extraordinary feat, achieved thanks to the dedication of our teachers and to the support and patience of home-schooling parents. However, the lockdown exposed the digital divide in our society.

About 30% of private school pupils attended four or more online lessons per day during the first lockdown, but just 6.3% of state school pupils did the same. That is no surprise considering that one in five children did not always have access to a device for online learning while schools were closed. How does the Minister think those children logged in and learnt from home? The simple answer is, they did not. Those without have fallen behind even further.

The Government’s roll-out of devices was nothing short of shambolic: 5% of teachers in state schools reported that all their students had a device, compared with 54% at private schools. The Minister may point to those devices that finally were distributed, but the conclusion of the National Audit Office in March was utterly damning. The Department for Education did not even aim to provide equipment to all children who lacked it. Every click simply widened the attainment gap. So much for levelling up!

With schools open and lockdown lifting, this is no problem of the past. The days of pen and paper are long gone, and the technological age we now live in is here to stay. Homework, research, resources, catch-up—so much is now online. The consequences for those children on the wrong side of the digital divide is that they are now even more disadvantaged than before.

This afternoon, we debate the support that should be provided for children entitled to free school meals. I say to the Minister that support must be about more than just food. I am calling for all children entitled to free school meals to have internet access and an adequate device, so that they can log in and catch up from home. I recognise that free school meals are not a perfect indicator, but it is the best we have. Compared with the vast sums squandered through the pandemic, this is a low-cost, straightforward and tangible step forward. It is no silver bullet, but it would make a life-changing difference to children on the wrong side of the digital divide.

Take 10-year-old Abi in my constituency. In lockdown, she secured entry to the Tiffin Girls’ School, one of the most prestigious grammar schools in the country. She was working from a cramped homeless hostel, with only a refurbished smartphone to get her connected, one of 140 given to me by Tesco Mobile. Social mobility, levelling up—call it whatever you want—the impact for Abi was lifelong.

[Catherine West]

I put on the record my hon. Friend’s excellent work on the digital divide during the pandemic. It was right at the beginning, when highlighting it made such an impact. Of course, we all jumped on it when she raised the matter, but I wanted to put on the record the huge impact that had for so many children and learners in our society. A debt of gratitude is owed by so many families to her work.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

I thank my hon. Friend. So many people got involved in providing devices, such as football clubs like my own AFC Wimbledon, which has now donated more than 2,000 refurbished laptops. I thank all those charities that did such work. While it was brilliant work, however, it cannot be enough—the Government need to step in.

I hope that the Minister will consider the merits of my proposal to provide devices and an internet connection to all children on free school meals. I would be delighted to meet her to discuss how it could be rolled out in practice. It took the intervention of a premier league footballer for Ministers to agree that no child should go to bed hungry. What will it take before we all agree that no child should be left behind because of their internet connection?

--- Later in debate ---

[Vicky Ford]

The holiday activities and food programme, which we announced, during the spending review—this is a really important point—had been piloted by this Government for three years. We had a manifesto commitment to launch it, and we have launched it and delivered it. It is being funded by this Government and has been delivered in every single local authority in England.

We are working hand in hand with Conservative councils, with Labour councils, with Liberal Democrat councils, with councils with no overall control, with independent councils, even with a Green council. We should not play party political games with holiday activities and food, which are vital not only to our children’s food but also to their educational attainment, because we know that when children are engaged in enriching activities during the summer holidays, they come back more ready to learn in September and it helps to close that attainment gap. I ask hon. Members to get behind these clubs, work with their local areas, go and volunteer, take part and enjoy the children having fun.

During the pandemic, the Government have taken exceptional steps to support children to learn when they are in the classroom, but also when they had to stay at home. More than 1.3 million laptops were delivered. It was a massive procurement project, at times one of the largest in the world, and that was on top of an estimated 2.9 million laptops and devices already owned by schools before the start of the pandemic. We have provided extra funding for local transport authorities to procure dedicated additional transport capacity to enable children to travel to school and, in addition to the usual funding that schools receive for free school meals, during the period when school attendance was restricted, we funded almost £0.5 billion of food vouchers, so that children continued to be able to access free lunchtime meals while learning from home.

Right now, our focus is on building back better. We announced the £1 billion covid catch-up package last year, which has already enabled schools to directly tackle the impact of lost learning. Some £650 million was distributed directly to schools. In addition, the £350 million national tutoring programme specifically targets the most disadvantaged young people and enables them to access high-quality small group or one-on-one tuition, which we know helps accelerate academic progress and will help them to tackle the gap between them and their peers.

One example is the Nuffield early language initiative, which supports children in reception year, to which 40% of schools have signed up. The majority of those are schools with above average rates of free school-meal eligibility. Nearly a quarter of a million children are being screened under the programme, and 60,000 children are getting that one-on-one or small group help. It makes a massive difference to those children at the start of their education journey and it is just one part of this amazing national tutoring programme.

The hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green asked about support for other bills. As well as the furlough scheme and more than £7 billion in covid-related welfare measures, the Government have provided an additional £260 million of local welfare funding to local authorities in England. The key focus is to support disadvantaged children and their families, including children who have not yet started school, with food and other essentials, such as the utility bills that the hon. Lady mentioned, during both term time and school holidays. It covers food and fuel, and it keeps children and their families warm and well.

In terms of childcare bills, over the past decade we have made unprecedented investment in childcare. We introduced 30 hours of free childcare for many three and four-year-olds from working families, which can save parents up to £5,000 a year. The 15 hours of free childcare for two-year-olds from lower-income families is also a significant help. We know that when a two-year-old attends an early years setting it helps them to develop social skills and communication skills that can set them up for life.

[Catherine West]

Can the Minister tell us whether the UK has the most expensive or the second most expensive childcare in Europe?

[Vicky Ford]

We have also introduced many other different measures to help with childcare, for example the tax-free childcare that people can use. We want to ensure that our childcare is of very high quality, which is really important to parents, but the cost of childcare and of other bills continues to be an issue that we will keep looking at. That is why colleagues at the Department for Work and Pensions are doing additional work on the support we can give to reduce the cost of living for families from different backgrounds. The In-Work Progression Commission, which is led by Baroness Ruby McGregor-Smith, is looking at this exact issue, to better understand the barriers faced by people in low pay and to look at what more we can do to support those individuals and businesses. That report is expected to be published shortly.

The hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green mentioned support for families who get into debt. I am pleased that after many years of planning this month we have seen the launch of the breathing space scheme, which will help many hundreds of thousands of people who are struggling with their finances to obtain bespoke, tailored support to help them get back on track.

We know that the best way for families to get out of poverty is through work. After taking into account housing costs, a child living in a household where every adult is working is about four times less likely to be in absolute poverty than a child in household where nobody works. That is why, through colleagues at the Department for Work and Pensions, we are doubling the number of work coaches to help people find a job. Our £2 billion kickstart scheme offers work placements for 16 to 24-year-olds. The skills Bill not only unlocks new opportunities for young people but, through the lifelong learning grant, it will also open up the chance to access new skills and opportunities to people of all ages. All of that will help families and children.

To conclude, this Government have extended the free school-meals offer to more groups of children than any other for half a century and we provide breakfast clubs in many disadvantaged areas. Our amazing holiday activities and food scheme, which we have spent many years working on, is now going to be available across the country. We also support these children to level up through educational opportunities, the pupil premium, which will increase, and the national funding formula.

We have provided unprecedented support in early years. During the pandemic, we supported families with vouchers, we gave out 1 million laptops and we invested in transport and educational recovery. We have put billions of pounds of extra funding into welfare payments, and taken real action to help parents into jobs and to upskill, so that they can get even better-paid jobs. Over the past decade, a Conservative-led Government introduced that national living wage and has doubled the personal tax allowance. That, and changes to the national insurance calculations, means that people working full time on lower incomes are now up to £5,400 a year better off than they were under Labour.

The pandemic has presented challenging circumstances for many families, and the Government have acted swiftly to ensure that children and families continue to be able to achieve the very best in life. I think about vulnerable children every single day, and every single day people across Government are working on how best to support them now, tomorrow and in the future. We will continue to take action where it is needed, focusing always on the most vulnerable first, as that is the right thing to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

Thank you, Dr Huq, and I am sure I can keep my remarks to under five minutes.

Recommendation 1 of the Government’s food strategy was to

“make sure a generation of our most disadvantaged children do not get left behind”.

Eating well in childhood is the foundation stone of equality of opportunity, and it is essential for both physical and mental growth. A poorly nourished child will struggle to concentrate at school, and the debate has fleshed out that concept a lot. Unfortunately, the Minister’s winding-up speech did not give me much hope. I welcome the increases to many of the constituencies that she mentioned, but an increase in pupil premium, or an increase in funding for disadvantaged children, means that child poverty is increasing. That suggests the Prime Minister was wrong when he made his statement today, which the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) mentioned earlier.

A number of actions desperately need to be taken. No.1 is to pay as many people as possible not the minimum wage, but the real living wage, which is £9.50 in most of the UK and £10.85 in London. By the way, when I was a borough leader, we introduced the London living wage to all staff who worked in kitchens in schools at the same time as we introduced universal free school meals for every single primary school child. It was a great day when we did that.

No. 2 is that the £20 universal credit uplift must be made permanent, and we must urgently review the two- child limit. Let us not forget that over 50% of people using Trussell Trust food banks had never used one with children before, and that 1 million eight to 17-year-olds visited a food bank in December and January. We desperately need to review child benefit levels, which have been frozen, and we need to look at more help for families with fuel bills, water bills and council tax. I welcome the breathing space initiative that the Minister mentioned, but I do not think it is well known. I do not think there has been enough getting the message out, because far too many people are still in debt for certain financial products that are “buy now, pay later”, which very quickly become unaffordable.

People desperately need more help with housing costs, and we must look urgently at the privately rented sector, which tends to be very low quality. These days, it has lower-quality housing stock than in social housing, and people pay over a third of their income on expensive rent payments and childcare costs. [Interruption.] I think we have to end there, Dr Huq.

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

You can carry on.

[Catherine West]

I accept that not all of those elements are in the Minister’s brief, but she did very well to cover some of them. I think all Members in the debate would like to put on record the wonderful work that is done in schools by the women who cook the meals, our school meals supervisors, all our teaching assistants and all our teachers. They play an important role in promoting good nutrition and sitting down to have a hot meal in the middle of the day. That has important elements, such as learning to use a knife and fork and learning to have conversations with adults—all the things that sitting around a table does.

I hope the Minister will take this to heart as we go forward and as she looks at the implications of the national food strategy for schools, so that we can hopefully go towards a high-quality approach to breakfast clubs and school meals. We need to get as much free fruit into schools as possible—that was another cut during the austerity years that needs to come back. We should also look at any provision that we can offer in secondary schools, because children do not stop being poor when they turn 13 and go to secondary school. They still need all that nutritional support and help.

We have had a good debate, and I thank all Members for being involved. I hope that the Minister will take some of the recommendations from the debate into Government policy, so that we can aspire to have a society where the 23 billionaires who were added to the rich list do not get to eat all the food, but where our poorer children get to have a nutritional and fully based diet as well.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered support for children entitled to free school meals.