Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the proportion of children in reception classes that are receiving free school meals.
Although all children in infant classes can receive a free meal under universal infant free school meals, the school census still records which children would have been eligible for a free school meal (FSM) under the criteria used for later school years. Of the 663,796 reception pupils in the January 2017 census, 92,733 are recorded as having been eligible for an FSM under these rules. This accounts for 14% of reception pupils.