Universal Credit: Free School Meals Debate

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Department: Department for Education

Universal Credit: Free School Meals

Lord Addington Excerpts
Thursday 21st February 2019

(5 years, 10 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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Lord Agnew of Oulton Portrait Lord Agnew of Oulton
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My Lords, it might be worth pointing out this week’s ONS statistics, which show a rather more positive figure on employment: 32.6 million people in this country are now employed. That is 167,000 more than between July and September 2018, and 440,000 more than a year ago. We take child poverty very seriously. We also encourage schools, through the use of the pupil premium, to encourage additional recruitment to the programme.

Lord Addington Portrait Lord Addington (LD)
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My Lords, does the Minister agree with the general agreement that a good diet improves performance at school? Taking that on board, would not an Education Minister encourage his colleagues to make sure that more children got free school meals, not fewer?