Free School Meals: Children with SEND

Helen Hayes Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Dr Huq. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) on securing this important debate on an issue that affects some of the most vulnerable children who have special educational needs and disabilities, and who live in very low-income households, making them eligible for free school meals.

I am grateful to the charity Contact and to Irene and Natalie, who are in the Gallery, for the work that they have done to bring to public attention the issue of children with special educational needs and disabilities who are eligible for free school meals but unable to access them, and for all their advocacy on behalf of families with disabled children. I also thank all hon. and right hon. Members who have participated in the debate. We have heard from MPs who represent constituencies right across the country, including the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg), my hon. Friends the Members for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy) and for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle), the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Sarah Dyke), and my hon. Friends the Members for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana) and for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), and from colleagues who made interventions—

[Jim Shannon]

And Strangford!

[Helen Hayes]

Of course. It would not be a Westminster Hall debate if we had not heard from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), and I apologise profusely for that omission.

We have heard about the impact that the failure to implement Government legislation is having on families across the country. The law places a duty on maintained schools, academies and free schools to provide free school meals to pupils of all ages who meet specific criteria. Schools also have a duty under the Equality Act to make reasonable adjustments to the way that free school lunches are delivered, if the standard way of delivering them would put a disabled pupil at a substantial disadvantage compared with other pupils. These duties are not reflected in the current guidance for schools.

There is also a gap in the legislation in relation to independent schools. Many children with special educational needs and disabilities attend specialist independent schools, with funding from local authorities, under their education, health and care plans, but there is no duty on those schools to provide free school meals. That is one of the many examples of the ways in which children with special educational needs and disabilities are simply not a priority for the Government.

The system of support on which children with SEND and their families rely is beyond breaking point. The Government delayed their SEND review three times, and much of the SEND and alternative provision improvement plan will not come into effect until 2025, six years after the review was announced. During that time, 300,000 children with SEND will have left secondary school, having spent the entirety of their school education under an increasingly failing system of SEND support. This issue should be an urgent priority for the Government. The system is failing children and their families, and it is an increasingly prominent factor in the number of councils issuing section 114 notices and effectively declaring bankruptcy because they can no longer balance their budget.

The Childhood Trust has found that families of children with SEND are disproportionately affected by the cost of living crisis, and they are more likely to live in poverty than families of children without SEND needs. Our children need and deserve so much better. Labour will introduce free breakfast clubs in every primary school to ensure that no child has to start the school day hungry. We will work to make mainstream schools inclusive for children with special educational needs and disabilities, including by supporting teachers to gain the skills and knowledge they need to teach children with SEND. We will limit the number of branded items that schools can specify in the school uniform to put money back in parents’ pockets, and we will work tirelessly to end the unacceptable level of child poverty, which has been growing so shamefully on this Government’s watch.

The Tory cost of living crisis is making life hard for far too many families, and it means that in the short term, access to entitlements, such as free school meals for children who are eligible, is more important than ever, and there is no excuse for the current failure. I hope the Minister will set out the steps he will take to ensure that children with SEND who are eligible for free school meals can access them, and that schools and other education settings are properly supported to meet their duties under both the Education Act and the Equality Act.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds]

Obviously the quality of school food is critical, and regulations cover not only free school meals, in the sense of lunches, but all food that is available during the school day—for example, in breakfast clubs that schools provide and even in tuck shops. I may get inspiration, but I think the standards cover up to 6 pm in the evening for things going on during the school day.

When one talks about compliance with regulations, one has to think differently about what is done at a system level and for individual children. Candidly, I do not think that it is realistic to say that you could have a regulatory agency that was looking at every individual case of individual children and their requirements in that particular school, but it is important that we have those standards. If the hon. Lady would like, I would be very happy, of course, to follow up with her separately.

That, in fact, brings me on to the point that I have in front of me, which is that, where parents do have specific concerns that a school’s legal obligations regarding their child are not being met, those should be raised with the school in the first instance, and subsequently, as necessary, with the academy trust or local authority.

[Helen Hayes]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. I am simply making the point that the absence of any reference in the guidance to the legislation results in a situation of conflict—