Free School Meals: Voucher Schemes

(asked on 2nd July 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans he has to expand the number of retailers included in the Covid Summer Food Fund voucher scheme.


Answered by
Vicky Ford Portrait
Vicky Ford
This question was answered on 10th July 2020

Provision for free school meals is ordinarily term-time only. However, owing to the COVID-19 outbreak, the government understands that children and parents face an entirely unprecedented situation over the summer. To reflect this, we will be providing additional funding for a COVID Summer Food Fund that will enable families with children who are eligible for free school meals to receive food vouchers covering the six-week holiday period. This is a specific measure to reflect the unique circumstances of the COVID-19 outbreak. Our guidance on the COVID Summer Food Fund is available here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/covid-summer-food-fund.

The vouchers can be spent in a variety of supermarkets that have e-gift card arrangements in place with our supplier, Edenred, including Aldi, Asda, Company Shop Group, Iceland (including The Food Warehouse Stores), Marks & Spencer, McColl’s, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose. We have been working with other supermarkets to encourage them to join. Any additional supermarkets would need to have the right infrastructure to deliver e-gift cards across their network of stores.

Where eligible families would be unable to access any of the supermarkets available through using Edenred e-gift cards, schools can make alternative voucher arrangements with a local supermarket that is not listed above. Schools can claim for this through the exceptional costs fund in the autumn, provided that schools have ordered their vouchers one week before their school term ends.

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