Support for Children Entitled to Free School Meals

Tulip Siddiq Excerpts

Wednesday 26th May 2021 Westminster Hall

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq, for the first time. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) for securing this important debate, and for her powerful speeches today and at the debate on Monday. She is right that it is a national outrage that our country is so unequal, with an economic system so broken that so many parents are forced to rely on inadequate support from the state to feed their children, despite their best efforts.

I really regret the fact that not a single Conservative MP has chosen to speak in today’s debates. Yet, a few years ago, this very same room was packed with Conservative Members who wanted to defend Donald Trump’s right to a state visit. With over half a million children qualifying for free school meals since March last year, a debate on this support has never been more important. Free school meals are often the only hot meal that some children get all day, and they are a lifeline for many families who are struggling to make ends meet, as my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock) set out so clearly, drawing on her experience as a teacher in a previous life. The huge rise in free school meals eligibility is therefore very significant and further evidence of how devastating covid-19 has been for family budgets.

There was a very real and growing problem with child poverty in this country before the pandemic, and we have seen today the new, shocking statistic that more than one in five Londoners in working households live in poverty. We also heard powerful testimony from my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Claudia Webbe) about the huge increase in food parcels delivered by the Trussell Trust in this pandemic. The fact that more than 2 million children have now been pushed into food insecurity and that hundreds of thousands have been forced to skip meals in the pandemic has really shone a light on the need to ensure that proper free school meal support is delivered to all children who need it all year round.

However, that realisation, which has been obvious to pretty much everybody, particularly after Marcus Rashford’s powerful campaigns, has not come as easily to Government Ministers. I am sad to say that they have had to be dragged kicking and screaming time and again to do the right thing. I do not take any pleasure from this, but the Prime Minister’s right-hand man told us today that his boss decided to “pick a fight” with Marcus Rashford over free school meals rather than take action to feed hungry children in a pandemic.

What did the Government do? They initially refused to extend free school meals over last summer, when millions were being forced to apply for unemployment benefits. They whipped Conservative MPs to vote against providing free school meals over the October 2020 half- term through to Easter this year. They presided over a moment of national shame in January, when utterly woeful food parcels, which were near-identical to the Government’s own guidance, were given out, and then they voted against Labour’s motion to ensure that families get the full value of that support.

Just contrast us with Wales, where families have known from the start of the pandemic, and many months ahead of time, that the full value of free school meals would be available in every upcoming school holiday, and that is now guaranteed until Easter 2022. That is the leadership that we should have seen from the Prime Minister, who instead picked a fight with a premier league footballer. It astonishes me that, after all that failure and the uncertainty that the Government have put families through, they have still not learned the lessons and are still refusing to guarantee free school meals in the upcoming summer holidays.

I know that the Minister will point to the holiday activities and food programme, but the Government’s guidance on that scheme says that councils should provide just 16 days’ of food support over the entire six-week summer holiday. It does not say that that support should be guaranteed. The Local Government Association has said that

“the scheme is unlikely to see all eligible children participate and will not be suitable for everyone.”

I am extremely concerned that many children will miss out on that if they do not do the activities, and that there will be a postcode lottery in support. That is especially concerning in the light of the deep cuts to local government budgets, the impact of which my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby) spelled out so clearly in her powerful speech.

The failure to deliver free school meals is not the only way in which the Government have let down children who qualify for this support. Children on free school meals are less likely to have digital devices and internet connectivity than their peers, and there has been a failure to rectify that for home learning during school closures and self-isolation. Ministers have missed every single target for delivering laptops. Their schemes ensured that only a third to a half of those who needed one got one, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) for her contribution, and her tireless campaigning for children on free school meals to get digital support.

Most recently, and perhaps most shockingly, the Government implemented a stealth cut to the pupil premium by excluding anyone who became eligible for free school meals since October last year from the calculation of how much more to give schools. Labour analysis of freedom of information data shows that more than 115,000 children will miss out on over £133 million of support as a result. There is no end to the ways that this Government are prepared to sideline the needs of some of the most disadvantaged children in the country.

I have a series of questions for the Minister. Why did the Prime Minister pick a fight with Marcus Rashford over free school meals? Why on earth are the Government implementing a cut to the pupil premium in the middle of a pandemic? Why will they not simply guarantee that all children who qualify will be able to get free school meals over the summer holiday? Why are the Government refusing to consider Labour’s suggestion of allowing families to get cash payments for this support? Are they still planning to withdraw free school meals support from children who have no recourse to public funds at some point? Finally, what steps are they taking to support children who do not qualify for free school meals but who, none the less, face food insecurity?

The point was made several times in the debate that, in a country as rich as ours, we should not need free school meals. At the very least, children should not be as reliant on them as they are right now. Sadly, they are a necessity because 4.3 million children in the UK live in poverty. For far too many people, work does not pay enough to live on. The Government spent 10 years gutting the social security system, and our economy is built on insecurity and inequality. All those things are getting worse as a direct result of policy choices over the last decade. We need to start making different choices as we emerge from the pandemic.

The Government need to show the moral courage and leadership required to eradicate child poverty and ensure that no child goes hungry. That starts with the Government learning the lessons from mistakes that led to children having to skip meals in the pandemic. I hope we will hear some humility from the Minister when she addresses our arguments. I look forward to her answering all the questions posed throughout the debate.