Free School Meals

Liz Jarvis Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2025 Westminster Hall

[Liz Jarvis (Eastleigh) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered free school meals.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. It is a great honour to introduce this debate on free school meals—the first opportunity to discuss this important issue since the general election. Today’s debate was prompted by my conversations with primary school teachers in my constituency, who told me of their concerns at the lack of funding for free school meals and breakfast clubs. The number of children in our country going to school hungry is unacceptable, and that impacts families in my constituency of Eastleigh and across the UK. The chance to have the best start in life should be available to all children, regardless of background.

The cost of living crisis has driven countless families into hardship. The Government’s own figures estimate that 4.3 million children, or 30% of all children in the UK, are living in poverty, with the figure at 21% in my constituency. As of January 2024, 18.5% of pupils in Eastleigh—that is 2,426 children—were entitled to benefit-based free school meals, yet we know many more who would benefit from a free school meal do not meet the strict eligibility criteria and miss out. The Government must look at this issue with the urgency it requires, because those children are being failed.

[Clive Jones (Wokingham) (LD)]

While I was the leader of Wokingham borough council, I ensured that we funded free school meals during the school holidays for children who received them during term time. That was absolutely the right thing to do to ensure that children were not left hungry and at a disadvantage because of their background. The Times reports that 1 million children face losing their free school meals. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is troubling, and that the Government must ensure that children entitled to free school meals continue to receive them during school holidays?

[Liz Jarvis]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and I absolutely agree. I also congratulate him on the work that he did at the council to ensure that children did not go hungry in the school holidays. I wish more and more councils were able to do that.

How are children supposed to get good grades at school, engage in sports and achieve their dreams for a better future if they are hungry? Four in five teachers told the National Education Union that they see children unable to concentrate due to the impact of deprivation. Polling of 10,000 teachers across England conducted by School Food Matters showed that a quarter of teachers have used their own money to feed children. For families who are struggling, a free school meal would make a huge difference. When children are well fed, they perform better at school, are healthier, and have improved long-term outcomes.

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[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

Order. Will Members address the Chair, not one another directly, please?

[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.

[Marie Goldman (Chelmsford) (LD)]

My hon. Friend said that it is important that children are well fed, and I want to focus on the word “well”. Does she agree that this is about not just the amount of food that we provide for children, but the quality? It is really important that children receive highly nutritious content that releases energy slowly throughout the day and enables them to concentrate. Does she agree that, given that school face such difficulties with their budgets, there is an understandable temptation to look at less costly solutions for food, which is potentially very dangerous for children’s long-term health outcomes and ability to learn?

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[Liz Jarvis]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I agree that it is essential that children have the best possible quality food, as well as a sufficient quantity.

I absolutely support the roll-out of breakfast clubs, but we must ensure that schools have the resources to provide them. The Government have talked about their plan for change, but addressing the core issues of funding for free school meals, the low threshold for eligibility and the way children are locked into appalling poverty is paramount. In England, only families earning £7,400 or less a year after tax and benefits qualify for free school meals. That threshold is far too low and excludes hundreds of thousands of children in need. The limit must be increased, so I was pleased to support a Liberal Democrat amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to increase the threshold to £20,000 a year after tax, which would expand eligibility to children who are currently missing out.

According to analysis conducted by the Child Poverty Action Group, 900,000 children living in poverty do not qualify for free school meals because the eligibility criteria are so restrictive. Those children are being denied a meal that they desperately need. That is a shameful legacy of years of underfunding.

It is also unacceptable that thousands of children entitled to free school meals are not receiving them due to administrative barriers. The Liberal Democrats believe that auto-enrolment is the solution, which is why my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) tabled an amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to implement that change. A report by Policy in Practice in 2024 estimated that 471,000 children missed out on free school meals due to a complex application process. Auto-enrolment been proven to work. When it was introduced in Durham, nearly 2,500 additional children gained access to free school meals, leading to a £3 million boost in pupil premium funding for the local council.

A system designed to support the most vulnerable should not be so complex that it prevents children from accessing the help they need. It is not just parents who are struggling with the administrative burdens, but teachers. My constituent Mrs Beckett, the headteacher of Nightingale primary school in Eastleigh, told me that the need to continuously justify how pupil premium funding is spent is one of the ongoing frustrations for schools. In reality, that funding allows them to provide additional support that benefits every child. Given that free school meals eligibility is a key driver for pupil premium funding, she questioned whether there had been any discussion about reducing the bureaucratic burdens on schools in this area. It would be more beneficial for the Government to acknowledge the broader support impact of the funding than to expect schools to repeatedly demonstrate its effectiveness, which is not a good use of staff time.

Beyond the bureaucratic hurdles that families and schools face, many families simply cannot afford to provide their children with nutritious meals, leaving schools on the frontline of a food insecurity crisis. A survey conducted in January 2025 by the Food Foundation found that 18% of households with children reported experiencing food insecurity, compared with 12% of households without children. That is deeply concerning, not least because of the growing child obesity crisis. According to NHS England, almost one in 10 children are already obese by their first year of school, and by year 6 it rises to 22.1%. Schools should be part of the solution, ensuring that every child has access to healthy, balanced meals that support their growth, learning and wellbeing. If the Government are serious about raising the healthiest generation ever, they must go beyond rhetoric and ensure that free school meal funding is high enough to provide the right meal for every child who needs one.

Providing universal free school meals for primary school children is a good social and economic policy. Research from Sweden found that children who receive free school meals earn 3% more in lifetime earnings, rising to 6% for the poorest children. Expanding free school meals would be an investment in our future. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s analysis has shown that without additional action from the Government, poverty and deep poverty will remain largely flat until January 2029, with child poverty in the same terrible state. The Liberal Democrats would extend free school meals to all children living in poverty across both primary and secondary schools, with the goal of providing them to all primary school children when public finances permit. The Government must use targeted support, starting with more free school meals and establishing a fairer social security system that lifts families out of poverty, removes cruel policies such as the two-child benefit cap, and provides a proper safety net. I have consistently called for the two-child benefit cap to be scrapped, which is the quickest and most cost-effective way to lift children out of poverty.

No family should have to choose between paying bills and putting food on the table. No teacher should have to worry about making sure that pupils have had enough to eat so that they can learn, and no child should have to struggle through the school day. I hope the Government will act with urgency and step up for the children who desperately need their support.

[Peter Dowd (in the Chair)]

I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called to speak in the debate.

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[Liz Jarvis]

I thank all the Members who have spoken in this debate. The biggest takeaways for me are that the way to ensure that all children have enough to eat at school is to raise the threshold for families who qualify for free school meals, to scrap the two-child benefit cap and to have auto-enrolment for free school meals. I urge the Government to listen to the lived experiences of teachers who are trying to deliver free school meals or breakfast clubs, because they are all struggling, in my constituency and across the UK. It is really important that the Government take that on board.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered free school meals.