Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, with reference to his 8 May 2019 press release entitled Free meals and activities for 50,000 children over 2019 summer holidays, how much funding he plans to allocate to such projects in summer 2020; and if he will make a statement.

This year we invested £9 million to set up local holiday activity and food coordinators in 11 local authority areas, including Newcastle upon Tyne. This was a considerable increase on the £2 million funding for provision in 2018. These 11 coordinators were responsible for funding and overseeing free holiday clubs, so that disadvantaged children in the chosen areas benefitted from high quality provision during the summer holiday.

We continue to build our understanding of how free provision can be coordinated, providing valuable information about what works in supporting this sector. We will set out our plans for 2020 later in the autumn.