Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make it his policy to (a) automatically enrol for free school meals those school children who are eligible and (b) expand the eligibility criteria to include all children who meet the income criteria, regardless of their parents’ circumstances.

The provision of free school meals (FSM) to children from out-of-work families or those on low incomes is of the utmost importance to this government. Under the benefits-related criteria the department provides a free healthy meal to around 1.7 million children, ensuring they are well nourished and can concentrate, learn and achieve in the classroom.

Under this government, eligibility for FSM has been extended several times and to more groups of children than any other government over the past half a century, including the introduction of universal infant FSM, and further education FSM.

The department is also permanently extending FSM eligibility to children from all groups with no recourse to public funds. This will come into effect for the start of the summer term. We also want to make sure as many eligible pupils as possible are claiming their FSM, and to make it as simple as possible for schools and local authorities to determine eligibility.

To support this, the department provides an eligibility checking system to make the checking process as quick and straightforward as possible for schools and local authorities. We have also developed a model registration form to help schools encourage parents to sign up for FSM and provide guidance to Jobcentre Plus advisers so that they can make Universal Credit recipients aware that they may also be entitled to wider benefits, including FSM.

As announced in the Spring Statement, the government is continuing to provide targeted cost of living support for households most in need. From April, the government is providing an additional £500 million to help households with the cost of household essentials, on top of what we have already provided since October 2021, bringing the total funding for this support to £1 billion.