Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the annual cost of extending (a) free school meals, (b) the pupil premium to all pupils whose parents are in receipt of universal credit in (i) each of the next four years and (ii) once universal credit has been fully rolled out.

We estimate that providing free school meals to all children from households receiving Universal Credit would result in around half of all pupils becoming eligible for free school meals – over three times as many as the 1.1 million (14%) that are eligible for and claiming free school meals in the latest figures[1]. We estimate that this would cost in excess of £3 billion more a year, including the cost of the extra meals and associated school deprivation funding, such as the pupil premium – the additional meal costs alone would be in excess of £450 million per year.

Costs in each of the next four years will be lower than this as the proportion of the pupil population living in households receiving Universal Credit will be lower prior to the completion of rollout. We have not provided precise estimates for the next four years as we believe the level of uncertainty around these figures means that releasing them would not be in the public interest.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/eligibility-for-free-school-meals-and-the-early-years-pupil-premium-under-universal-credit