Schools: Free Holiday Meals and Activities

Lord Storey Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, since 2018 the Government have funded summer learning to the tune of £9 million a year. It was open to schools to use some of the catch-up funding announced at the end of last term to provide summer schools and learning. As I have outlined, the holiday provision is subject to recommendation and consideration in the spending review.

[Lord Storey (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I am sure that we all agree that all children have a right to food. When we consider the national strategy, can we bear in mind a number of factors? First, we need to be flexible so that people whose families become unemployed during that period have access to the scheme. Secondly, the vouchers should pay only for food that contributes to a healthy diet. Thirdly, some of the technical problems, which I understand, need to be properly sorted out. It is not acceptable for struggling parents to have to access a helpline that costs £21 an hour to use.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, there will be a census in October that will take into account the number of students now eligible to claim free school meals, and funding will follow that. I pay tribute to those who put up the Edenred platform at speed. There were some teething problems, but we managed to have 20,000 schools get vouchers via that system.