Free School Meals (Colleges)

Debate between Meg Hillier and Robert Halfon

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Westminster Hall

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies, and a delight to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett), who has been a pioneer in so many aspects of 14-to-19 education. I am vice-chair of the all-party group on social mobility, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) highlighted, free school meals are a critical part of that issue.

I want to highlight some issues in Hackney that demonstrate the benefits of providing support to 16 to 18-year-olds and its impact on their life chances and those of their families in future. Hackney has seen a huge increase in achievement at 16 and 18. A decade ago, Hackney schools were a byword for low quality, with five A to C achievement well below the national average and some schools failing. We now have a range of outstanding schools, with achievements above the national average. Mossbourne academy is well publicised, but it typically achieves 84% five A to Cs, including maths and English. Those young people come from the estates in the surrounding borough, not wealthy areas. They come from a range of backgrounds, but predominantly poorer ones. Young people entering sixth form now get offers of places at leading universities, including Oxford and Cambridge.

When I was selected for Hackney South and Shoreditch, there was a debate at the time about university fees. I said at my selection meeting, “If only we could have the luxury of debating young people in Hackney going on to university,” because at that point, it was not happening in large numbers at all. We needed to invest earlier, and that investment has now happened. Young people are playing their part. They are ambitious and hard-working. Although there may be poverty in terms of money, there is no poverty of ambition. They need this bit of help; they need this barrier dealt with and they need a level playing field.

We know what a difference a good meal makes; my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) highlighted that point, so I will not go into detail. Magic Breakfast is a charity working in Hackney across primary schools, because we know that many children, for all sorts of difficult reasons—not only poverty, but chaotic family backgrounds—turn up to school hungry in the morning. Those young people are given something as simple as a bagel at breakfast club, or extra support at breaktime for those who do not turn up to breakfast club because their parents do not have the wherewithal to get them there. Teachers and head teachers tell me that that has made a major difference to achievement. We know that argument, so I will not go into it further.

In contrast to the constituency of the hon. Member for Redcar (Ian Swales), Hackney has a range of post-16 provision. We have BSix, which is a sixth-form college; sixth forms in schools and academies; 16 to 19-year-olds studying at Hackney community college, which is our local FE college; and the Boxing academy, which offers 14 to 16-year-olds provision when they are unable to cope in mainstream school. We have embraced the 14-to-19 agenda pioneered by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough. Fourteen to 16-year-olds also study at Hackney community college, although they remain on school rolls, so are not affected by the issue.

From September we will be proud to open our first university technical college, on the same campus as Hackney community college, which sponsors it. That brings me to a major anomaly that demonstrates the ridiculous current situation. We will have a university technical college providing places for 14 to 18-year-olds on the same site as Hackney community college providing education equally for 14 to 18-year-olds, but particularly for the 16 to 18-year-olds on its roll. The same site, the same age. Students aged 16 to 18 at the university technical college will qualify for free school meals if they meet the criteria, but on the same campus students of the same age, possibly studying for the same qualification, at Hackney community college will not qualify. How ridiculous is that? As others have said, the Minister is a reasonable man. That situation demonstrates the ridiculousness of the anomaly and why it needs to be resolved.

Our sixth form college, BSix, has 1,500 students, 450 of whom receive bursaries under the bursary scheme. Previously, more than 70% of students received EMA, which was given out in similar numbers across Hackney sixth forms. There are still 568 students on EMA, and most of those will of course require bursary funding in future.

I want to touch on the points made forcefully by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) and by the hon. Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale) about stigma. It is degrading to young people to have to beg someone with whom they have an academic relationship, or the college principal, for help. Someone’s circumstances may change during the year, such as when a parent loses their job, and they must then lay all that personal stuff before someone they want to have a relationship with in the classroom, and beg for money. At that point the bursary fund may have been spent; there may not be money available. The system should not be put in the hands of principals. We had a perfectly good system under EMA, which worked, and I regret that it is gone. The bursary system that replaces it is an acknowledgement by the Government that they made the wrong decision.

[Robert Halfon]

Does the hon. Lady think that the answer would be a requirement for schools, and the local education authority, to share with the college those pupils who had free school meals at a previous school?

[Meg Hillier]

I am not quite sure what point the hon. Gentleman is making. If there were a centralised way—I know that the Mayor of London is looking at this—of managing a bursary scheme to make it more like a local EMA, that would at least take out the stigma. There is a benefit in that. I do not think that young people should be told to go to certain places, to share out the number of people receiving free school meals. In Hackney the percentage for free school meal uptake is so high that it would make no difference anyway, but if the hon. Gentleman is suggesting that—I may have misunderstood his point—it would be the wrong way round.

At least 1,000 students at BSix alone would be eligible for free school meals for the next academic year, and that provision will need to be taken from the bursary fund. The raw figures show that 89% of the 450 students receiving bursary funds would be eligible for free school meals. To date in this academic year BSix has spent £96,315 on free school meals—nearly £100,000. That is 45% of its bursary budget, which, if it were a school sixth form, it would not have had to spend. That shows that there is a big cost, which is falling hard on young people.

We often talk about facts and figures, but I want to remind hon. Members of the human story. EMA was used by many pupils in Hackney for basic things. Happily, in London, there are certain travel discounts, or free travel, but there were issues about paying for food. One young woman told me that on a Thursday her EMA was used to top up the electricity key. It is as simple as that; it was used to have the lighting and heating working in the house, to enable her to study, and the family to live. The money was not used for luxuries.

I do not have time to go into other human stories, but I want to touch on the point that the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) made, when he talked about handouts with no strings attached. We need to think about free school meals, EMA and bursaries as they are now as an investment in young people, who will be the taxpayers of the future, paying for the pensions of the future. If we do not invest in them during the two years in question, and get them over the hurdles into further and higher education and better jobs, and skill up our work force, we shall be letting down our country and future taxpayers. About 22% of Hackney residents are under 16 and a third of them are under 24, so I appreciate the important and valuable contribution that young people make. It is a significant issue.

Overall, the Government profess to be in favour of choice. They promote free schools and talk about social mobility. In Hackney we have embraced that diversity of provision, but it is a false choice. If free school meals cost about £450 a year, and are provided in some settings, but not others, how will young people make their choices? Some will be forced to make a choice not, as the hon. Member for North Thanet said, for the right reasons, but simply on financial grounds.