Free School Meals (Colleges)

Nick Gibb Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

I begin by congratulating the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) on securing this important debate. He is a former and distinguished Education Secretary.

As right hon. and hon. Members will know, the origins of a school meals service can be traced back to the mid-19th century. Later in the 19th century and in the early 20th century, a number of provisions for both free and reduced-cost meals were introduced to tackle malnutrition in schoolchildren. During the war years, the school meals service was transformed in policy and scope to become a general service of mid-day dinners that was intended to benefit all children.

The Education Act 1944 placed local education authorities under a statutory duty to provide meals and milk to pupils at schools and county colleges that the authorities maintained. The details were set out in the Provision of Milk and Meals Regulations 1945, but only in relation to maintained schools. Those regulations also made provision for meals to be provided free of charge to pupils at maintained schools who met certain conditions.

The Education Act 1980 gave local authorities the power to provide meals free of charge to pupils at any school maintained by them whose parents were in receipt of supplementary benefit or family income supplement. The 1980 Act was repealed by the Education Act 1996, since when the list of qualifying benefits for free school meals has increased, to ensure that those children who most need free school meals are entitled to them. The current criteria for eligibility are where a child’s parents are on income support; income-based jobseeker’s allowance; an income-related employment and support allowance; support under the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999; the guarantee element of state pension credit; or child tax credit, but not working tax credit. The child’s parents must also have an annual income not exceeding £16,190. That has resulted in 19.2% of primary and nursery schoolchildren and 15.9% of secondary schoolchildren qualifying for free school meals.

The introduction of universal credit will simplify the benefits system and mean that we have to change the way that we determine eligibility for free school meals. We have yet to decide what the new criteria will be, but we want to make sure that they are simple and make free school meals available to those families on the lowest incomes.

It might be to desirable to extend free school meals further—for example, to all children. I understand the argument for doing so; I have seen that practice working well in Sweden, where all children receive a free school meal as part of what they receive at school, like the stationery, the heating and the building. The hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) mentioned Finland. However, extending free school meals, for example, to all pupils whose parents receive the new universal credit, in line with the proposal from the Children’s Society, would cost around £1.6 billion a year. To extend free school meals to all pupils of school age would cost around £2.9 billion a year.

[Mr Frank Field]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Gibb]

I will come to the issue of colleges in a moment, but I give way to the right hon. Gentleman first.

[Mr Field]

The Minister must know that none of us was arguing for extension of free school meals to every child. We were much more specific—

[Mr Gibb]

I understand that.

[Mr Field]

The Minister is reading from his script what I feared he would read out. Will he give this gathering in Westminster Hall today an undertaking that when he goes back to his next ministerial meeting he will ask his colleagues if they are happy that he, as their colleague in the Government, should have to stand up and defend a situation where some pupils, because they happen to go to a college rather than a sixth form, may be hungry?

[Mr Gibb]

If the right hon. Gentleman will be patient, he will see that although I am reading from a prepared script, I have manuscript changes to that script that I made during the debate. I was listening very carefully to all the arguments that were made.

I will continue. The Further and Higher Education Act 1992 moved colleges from local authority control into a more independent further education sector. Current legislation—the Education Act 1996—continues to provide free school meals only to pupils at schools maintained by a local authority. As was mentioned, academies and free schools are required to comply with free school meal legislation via their funding agreement. This provision also extends to students attending school sixth forms, because they are covered by the definitions of “secondary education” and “school”. However, it does not extend to pupils at independent schools, or to pupils aged between 14 and 16 who study at a college instead of a school. Pupils who are registered at a school but who also attend college are still covered and their school must provide free school meals if they meet the eligibility criteria.

As the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough has pointed out, free meals do not apply to students at sixth-form or FE colleges. The different legal status and independence of sixth-form and FE colleges bring with them other benefits, which the institutions themselves do not want to lose. That does not mean that we believe that students studying at sixth-form and FE colleges are any different from those attending school sixth forms. I understand and have sympathy with the argument made by Members including the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge that vocational courses are more likely to be found in FE colleges than in school sixth forms. As the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) pointed out, we recognise the anomaly. It is an anomaly, whether or not we put the word in inverted commas, but it is not a new anomaly. Indeed, it is one that previous Governments have not address did—I have to say that it was not addressed by the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough when he was Education Secretary between 1997 and 2001.

[Mr Field]

My right hon. Friend apologised for that.

[Mr Gibb]

I will acknowledge that. That was at a time when the Labour Government had just inherited a golden economic legacy—

[Nic Dakin]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Gibb]

No, as I am running out of time. As I was about to do, I acknowledge the honesty of the right hon. Gentleman’s hands-up confession.

The Association of Colleges is campaigning for the provision of free meals to be extended to all eligible FE students between 16 and 18. It estimates that it would cost £38 million to do so, although our own estimate is that it would cost significantly more than that. I sympathise with the arguments of my hon. Friends the Members for Harlow (Robert Halfon), for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage) and for Redcar (Ian Swales), which they made well in their passionate contributions to the debate. Although the sums that I have just quoted may seem small compared with the overall education budget, in the current fiscal climate it would be genuinely difficult to increase spending by between £35 million and £70 million, however desirable it would be to extend free school meals to students at sixth-form and FE colleges. Of course, we keep the matter under review and I will discuss the arguments that have been made today with my ministerial colleagues. That is the commitment that I give to the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field).

In education, the absolute priority of this Government is to close the attainment gap between those from wealthy backgrounds and those from poorer backgrounds, and all our policies are funded with that one aim in mind, whether the policy is about reading, behaviour or tackling underperforming schools. Our priority is to devolve as much of the Department for Education budget to the front line as possible. That is why we have managed to maintain school budgets at flat cash per pupil, despite the very difficult spending review. In addition, schools receive the pupil premium, which is specifically designed to boost attainment—

[Angela Smith]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Gibb]

I will finish this point and, if there is time, I will give way.

As I was saying, the pupil premium is specifically designed to boost the attainment of pupils aged under 16 from low-income families, and free school meals is the only per-pupil indicator of poverty that we can have. That amounts to some £625 million—

[Mrs Hodgson]

That is for schools.

[Mr Gibb]

I understand that it is for schools; I will come on to the other point. That amounts to some £625 million in 2011-12, £1.25 billion in the following year, and it will rise to £2.5 billion by 2014-15. The right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough and the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge are right that no pupil premium applies to pupils aged between 16 and 19, but for students between 16 and 19 the disadvantage uplift—as it is called—and the additional learning support funding are the equivalent of the pupil premium.

The disadvantage uplift is intended to recognise that young people from disadvantaged backgrounds may need extra support to close the attainment gap. The measure is based on the index of multiple deprivation for those living in the 27% most deprived areas, with students from more deprived areas attracting higher rates. In addition, we increased funding for disadvantaged young people and for additional learning support by £150 million in 2011-12, and that total funding is now £750 million a year. But again I must say that to help to tackle the budget deficit, we have had to make some very difficult decisions.

In the remaining time, I just want to point out to the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge that annual bursaries of some £1,200, which have replaced education maintenance allowance, are being provided to the most vulnerable young people. Taking the example of John, the student at one of her local FE colleges whom she mentioned, if John is 17 and on income support, he qualifies for a bursary of £1,200 a year, which is actually more than he would have received under EMA. The most vulnerable young people, including people in care—

[Philip Davies (in the Chair)]

Order. We now move on to the next debate.