Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans he has to increase the funding allocated for free school meals to take account of a rise in registrations in the January 2021 census.

Schools are funded for the provision of free school meals as part of their national funding formula allocations. The funding system is lagged and based on pupil information from the previous year. As such, increases in free school meal eligibility leads to increased funding the following year. The lagged funding system gives schools certainty over their budgets, as they know how much funding they will receive in advance.

During the period of national lockdown, schools should continue to provide meal options for all pupils who are in school. Meals should be available free of charge to all infant pupils and pupils who are eligible for benefits-related free school meals who are in school.

Schools should also continue to provide free school meal support to pupils who are eligible for benefits related free school meals and who are learning from home. Extra funding will be provided to support schools to provide food parcels or meals to eligible children.

Schools are free to decide the best approach for their free school meal pupils. They can provide lunch parcels, locally arranged vouchers, or they can use the national voucher scheme with Edenred, which re-opened on 18 January 2021. Schools have begun ordering and families have already begun redeeming supermarket vouchers.

Edenred reported that, by the end of 25 January 2021, 34,400 orders had been placed by schools and more than £26 million of eCodes had already been redeemed into supermarket gift cards for families.

Further details are set out in the guidance, available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-free-school-meals-guidance/covid-19-free-school-meals-guidance-for-schools.