Free School Meals/Pupil Premium: Eligibility Debate
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Marie Rimmer
Main Page: Marie Rimmer (Labour - St Helens South and Whiston)Department Debates - View all Marie Rimmer's debates with the Department for Education
Free School Meals/Pupil Premium: Eligibility
Marie Rimmer Excerpts(6 years, 10 months ago)
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Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) on securing the debate.
This Government have presided over a total failure to address this country’s economic flaws, to the extent that food banks are now a major food supplier in Britain. Free school meal eligibility is linked to the pupil premium, which is a valuable source of school funding for the most deprived schoolchildren, so it would be a casualty of the proposal. The free school meal consultation, which would see the earnings threshold for free school meals eligibility lowered to £7,400 per year, is a result of a flaw in the design of universal credit. The legacy benefit system contained an in-built trigger for free school meal eligibility. All children whose families are on universal credit receive free school meals, so the Government are trying to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted.
Has the Minister not considered that such a low threshold for free school meal eligibility is, in fact, a disincentive for parents to seek additional work? With school meals costing £437 per year, per child, undertaking an extra two hours of low-income work is not financially prudent for any parent. I urge the Minister to consider the human consequences of Government plans, in terms of physical and mental health and quality of life. Will he commit to maintaining free school meals eligibility for all children whose families are on universal credit?
Universal credit was a noble ambition, and Labour did not question the principle of it, but it has been executed so poorly that it has impoverished many people in the communities where it has been rolled out, to the extent that the use of food banks has risen by 30% six months on. It is a sad indictment of the Government that food poverty is having such a profound impact on children. In 2017, some food banks reported that more than 40% of their beneficiaries were children.
I point the Minister to the 2015 autumn statement, which committed the Government to maintaining pupil premium spending at current rates until 2020. Will he guarantee that spend, should this policy be implemented?