Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of extending free school meal provision to include children enrolled in maintained nursery schools.

Under current programmes, 2.1 million disadvantaged pupils are registered to receive benefits-based free school meals (FSM). This includes pupils attending a local authority maintained, academy or free school nursery who are entitled to FSM, as long as they either are in full-time education or receive education both before and after lunch and meet the benefits-based FSM eligibility criteria.

Further information on the number of pupils registered to receive FSM is available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/school-pupils-and-their-characteristics.