Free School Meals

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Wednesday 21st October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

I know that the hon. Lady is eager to intervene—I am sure that it is an interchangeable point that she can probably make at any time in my speech. If I could make some progress, I will give way to her later.

Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, we have been prioritising supporting jobs. We are helping employees to get back into work with an £1,000 bonus for employers if they keep on a member of staff. We are doubling the number of frontline work coaches, and putting in place a new job support scheme to protect jobs and businesses that are facing lower demand over the winter due to coronavirus. We are determined to build back better, which is why we have introduced a £30 billion plan for jobs, including the £2 billion kickstart scheme to help 250,000 16 to 24-year-olds on universal credit to get a foot on the jobs ladder.

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)]

rose—

[Gavin Williamson]

I am going to give way to the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) before the hon. Lady, but first I will make just a little bit more progress.

In this unprecedented time, the Government are proud to have injected £9 billion into the welfare system, because we on this side of the House recognised that action needed to be taken to protect and support those who are most vulnerable. That support has been targeted at those on low incomes, and includes increasing universal credit and working tax credit by up to £1,040 for this financial year, which benefits more than 4 million households. We have also provided an additional £63 million in welfare assistance funding for local authorities to support families with urgent needs, including over the October half-term.

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[Gavin Williamson]

My hon. Friend points out that this is a challenge that both parties face. There is a sense of commitment on the Conservative Benches to make a real and long-lasting difference to this, and that is what we will do.

We have sent out our guidance information to schools about how they can be supporting children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds. We understand how important this is. It is a continued focus of this Government and always will be. Schools are an integral part of our local communities. However, free school meals have only ever been intended to provide support during term-time periods while children are engaging in activity and learning. The provision of a healthy school meal helps children to concentrate and learn, as most recently evidenced by the pilot programme in 2012 that led to the introduction of universal infant free school meals in 2014. This complements a wider range of Government support that responds more directly to the challenges faced by families on lower incomes, and is further supplemented by the additional support in place as a direct result of the pandemic.

[Wera Hobhouse]

rose—

[Gavin Williamson]

I do apologise, but Mr Deputy Speaker has been quite clear about wanting me to make progress, and I would best do so.

During the unprecedented and unpredictable period at the start of the pandemic, it was right that extra measures were taken to provide free school meals during the holidays, but we are in a different position now that we have welcomed all pupils back to school. We know that the long summer break is the time when families most welcome support, and when children will most benefit from engaging activities so that they are ready to learn when they return to school in September. For the past three years, we have supported disadvantaged children with free healthy meals and enriching activities through our holiday activities and food programme. This summer, the £9 million holiday activities and food programme supported about 50,000 children across 17 different local authority areas. We have also provided £63 million in welfare assistance funding to local authorities to support families with urgent needs. This funding was passed to councils in July to provide local access to funding for those who need support, including families facing financial challenge.

Education is the No. 1 route to opportunity and prosperity. We invest more in the education of disadvantaged children to give them the very best chance in life, both through the weighted national funding formula and the £2.4 billion annual pupil premium. We have invested £1 billion in the covid catch-up fund, including investing in the national tutoring programme, which will offer high-quality small-group tutoring to disadvantaged pupils who have fallen furthest behind. We are equally determined to encourage the continuation of high-quality childcare, which helps parents to work and is a critical building block in children’s development. We are proud that since 2013 the proportion of children achieving a good level of development at the end of reception year has gone from one in two to nearly three out of four.

However, we recognise that these are unprecedented and difficult times for some families, and that is why the Government have significantly strengthened the welfare net. We have put in place additional welfare measures worth around £9 billion in this financial year, including increasing universal credit and working tax credit by up to £1,040 for this financial year, benefiting more than 4 million households. These welfare measures sit alongside our extensive support package, including the income protection schemes that have so far protected 12 million jobs at a cost of almost £53 billion for England alone. This is one of the most significant interventions by any Government in the western world. We recognise how important it is to protect not only jobs but families, and that is why we have taken these interventions. Taken together, it is clear that the Government have taken significant and unprecedented action to support children and families at risk of hardship during this period.

Free school meals are, and always have been, about supporting children with a meal to help them to learn when they are at school or, indeed, currently at home learning. However, it is our support through universal credit and our comprehensive welfare system that supports families. I have outlined a significant series of actions from across Government to support families who may otherwise struggle in the light of a pandemic, including £9 billion in welfare, £53 billion for job support measures, £63 million for local authorities to help those with urgent needs and £350 million to help the most disadvantaged students to catch up at school. Those are just a few things that this Government have put in place to support those who are most disadvantaged. They represent a direct financial response to the pandemic and demonstrate that the Government are doing everything possible to support those who need help. I encourage Members from across the House to support the Government as we tackle this pandemic and the impact it has on people across society, and I commend our amendment to the House.

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[Brendan O’Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to speak in the debate this afternoon and to give the full support of the Scottish National party to this Opposition motion. We very much welcome this debate, particularly as just yesterday the Scottish Government announced a £10 million package of funding for local authorities to continue providing free school meals over the forthcoming school holidays, up to and including the Easter break of 2021. The Scottish Government did that, quite simply, because in the middle of a global pandemic and with an economic crisis looming, that was the right thing to do. As the Cabinet Secretary for Social Security, Shirley-Anne Somerville, said:

“We are doing all we can to ensure the right support gets to the right people at the right time in the right way”.

Part of getting the right support to the right people in the right way at the right time involves ensuring that those who are most exposed to the economic consequences of the pandemic know that their children will still at least have one hot meal every day, even if it is during the school holidays. I agree with the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) that it is remarkable that, in the 21st century, at a time like this, in one of the richest countries in the world, we are even having to debate this or to ask the Government to fund free school meals over the school holiday period to prevent 1.5 million of the poorest and most vulnerable children in England from going hungry.

I, too, would like to pay tribute to the work done by Marcus Rashford to shine a light on this issue. As a hugely successful young professional athlete, it would have been so easy for him not to have done what he has, but it is a measure of him as a person that he has not forgotten where he came from and the struggle that his family and others had to endure every day growing up. In his public petition, he is asking the Government to keep going with the free school meal programme that was put in place over the summer holidays and did so much to help children from low-income families, who have been hardest hit by the pandemic. It is not a huge ask, but it has struck a chord across these islands, including several hundred of my constituents in Argyll and Bute, who, although not directly affected by this, have been struck by the sincerity and compassion of this young man.

Sadly, that compassion was not replicated in the Government’s response to the petition reaching 300,000 signatures. Their spokesperson said:

“It’s not for schools to regularly provide food to pupils during the school holidays. We believe the best way to support families outside of term time is through Universal Credit rather than government subsidising meals.”

Of course, they said that when the Government had just announced that they were taking the £20 universal credit uplift away. That particularly dismissive, not to say callous, response exposes just how hollow the Chancellor’s promise was back in the summer to do “whatever it takes” to help people through this crisis. As we head into what will certainly be very difficult times this winter, with coronavirus cases on the rise, prompting fears of a second wave, taking away food from under- privileged children seems a perverse way of doing whatever it takes to help. Bizarrely, that same UK Government spokesperson said of the summer holiday school meal scheme:

“This is a specific measure to reflect the unique circumstances of the pandemic”

as if we had somehow come through it all, the pandemic had gone and everything had returned to normal. Is that really what the Government wanted to say? Is that the message that they wanted to get out? If so, it is palpable nonsense, as any health professional, self-employed worker, hospitality business owner, seasonal worker or someone who is about to lose their furlough will confirm—as will the parent and carer of every poor child in England whose income has fallen and are now reliant on food banks and for whom a free school meal had become almost a daily necessity.

This is a political choice. There is no doubt that if this Government prioritised eradicating poverty, the money would be found in an instant, because poverty is not accidental. It is not inevitable. It is a political choice. Poverty is not something that happens by accident. Children going hungry in a country as rich as this is a consequence—a direct consequence—of political choices. A decade of austerity in which the poorest and weakest in our society were forced to carry the can and bear the brunt of a financial crisis that had nothing to do with them was a political choice, and so too is the decision to take away poor children’s food during an economic and health crisis. It is staggering.

[Wera Hobhouse]

I was going to ask the Secretary of State this. We all know how important healthy eating is—not just food on the table but healthy food on the table. During the covid crisis, the Government suspended the fruit and veg scheme, and it was only reinstated after some serious campaigning by the organisation Sustain. Does the hon. Member agree with me and Sustain that the fruit and veg scheme should be extended to all primary school children, so that they have the benefit of it?

[Brendan O’Hara]

That is not really a question for me—I am not and never would aspire to be the Secretary of State for Education—but I take on board the hon. Member’s point, because it is about political choices. That is why I am so pleased that the Scottish Government have chosen to use the limited powers they have to support 156,000 of our children and young people by committing £10 million to ensure that those children who need it will continue to get a free school meal during this holiday and every holiday up to Easter 2021. In addition, the Scottish Government have announced £20 million of funding to be made available to local councils to help tackle financial insecurity. That funding will be sufficiently flexible for councils to be able to provide support to people who, shamefully, have no recourse to public funds and would otherwise be destitute and have no access to mainstream benefits.

Of course child poverty still exists in Scotland; no one could or would deny it. But the difference between what the UK Government are doing and what the SNP is doing in Holyrood is that the Scottish Government are doing what they can, with limited powers, to alleviate the worst effects of the Government’s policies, to try to improve the lives of Scotland’s poorest children. That was recognised by both the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty, who praised the Scottish Government for using what he described as their

“newly devolved powers to establish a promising social security system guided by the principles of dignity”.

Included in that new security system is the Scottish child payment, which will pay the equivalent of £10 a week per child to families with eligible children who are currently in receipt of low-income benefit. From November, the fund will be open to families with children under the age of six, recognising that, of all children in poverty, almost 60% live in a family where a child is under six years old. Although there is no cap to the number of children per family, it means, for a family with two children under six, £1,040 a year extra in their pockets. That is expected to alleviate the worst excesses of poverty for 194,000 children, and it is a significant investment by the Scottish Government.

I understand that the Government intend to vote against the motion tonight. I hope the Whips have done their arithmetic, because I understand that at least one group of Conservatives will be voting with the Opposition this evening—the Scottish Conservatives. It was less than a month ago that the new leader, the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross), declared that providing free school meals, breakfast and lunch to every primary school pupil in Scotland was to be his flagship policy in next year’s Scottish elections. He said:

“I have seen myself the difference that providing free meals can make. I just want to make sure no-one falls through the cracks and by giving this to all primary school pupils we can make sure the offer is there for everyone.”

Given his words, it is absolutely inconceivable that he and his colleagues would do anything other than vote for the motion tonight and provide the same level of support for the 1.5 million children in England who will benefit from school meals. That is why, despite being wholly devolved, we will be in the Lobby this evening alongside, I believe, every single Scottish MP when the House divides this evening.

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[Wera Hobhouse]

I am very grateful to the hon. Member for giving way, because I think this is a very important issue and she is talking about cross-party support. The fruit and veg scheme is such an important scheme. Will she look at the campaign by Sustain of having a healthy piece of fruit or vegetable for every primary schoolchild in state education?

[Jo Gideon]

I thank the hon. Lady and, absolutely, we will be looking at this very broadly. That is the mandate and, quite frankly, I think that is what we should be talking about today.

As I was saying, addressing the issues of child obesity, malnutrition and food poverty is completely central to the agenda and it cannot be done overnight. I stood on a platform that a society is best judged by how it looks after its most vulnerable. This Government have shown throughout this pandemic that they are committed to supporting the most vulnerable in our society. The temporary and exceptional measure put in place at the height of this pandemic is not a sustainable solution. Rather than the Opposition bringing this same old question to the House every time we face a school holiday, they should work with us towards a long-term solution and a wraparound-support approach for low-income families.

For the reasons I have outlined, I will not be supporting this motion, but instead I call on those who truly wish to tackle the issue of food poverty long term to work with me in developing solutions for the benefit of those children and families we all seek to help.