Claire Young
Main Page: Claire Young (Liberal Democrat - Thornbury and Yate)Department Debates - View all Claire Young's debates with the Department for Education
(2 days, 17 hours ago)
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Claire Young (Thornbury and Yate) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Liz Jarvis) on securing this debate.
I absolutely support the call for universal free school meals, but it needs to be accompanied by a call for proper funding because at the moment schools are simply not getting the support they need. In my constituency, the local council is unable to provide a catering service any more; it is simply not financially viable. Over the years, more and more schools have opted for private firms, so councils have lost the economies of scale and are no longer able to provide that service. Now, of course, those private firms are charging schools more than they would have been paying previously. Not only that, but on a practical level teachers are being expected to do more work as part of providing catering. The practicalities of delivering free school meals, even in the current situation, are fairly grim for schools.
The Government have announced they will introduce breakfast clubs. One school I spoke to in my constituency said it was expecting 67p per child for non-pupil premium children and 88p for pupil premium children. It currently runs a breakfast club, and that non-pupil premium figure represents less than 15% of the break-even cost. The only way the school could fund a reasonable quality of breakfast and provide the support staff need would be to take money from many other important things it does. The school is also worried about the quality of food it will be able to provide. It currently provides a wide range of food, such as fruit, yoghurt, toast and cereals, and the children have plenty of choice. They also have the opportunity to have protein, which keeps them feeling full for longer. All of this gives them a balanced diet, but the school cannot see how it can provide more than a slice of toast on the funding that is proposed.
There is also a question of the physical constraints. The school I visited currently has to have two sittings for lunch and it has one of the larger school halls in the area. It is trying to work out the practicalities of delivering this service, given the constraints on space. Schools simply do not have the funding to extend their buildings.
In speaking to the motion, my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh raised the restrictive eligibility for free school meals. More children risk missing out in future when parents on legacy benefits are forced to move to universal credit. Existing transitional protections run out at the end of this month.
To conclude, it is important to children’s learning that they are well fed—by which I mean fed with good-quality food. I am concerned about the deliverability of the Government’s breakfast club proposals and the shortfalls that schools are already facing with free school meals.