Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their latest assessment of the impact of the changes to free school meals entitlement following the Free School Lunches and Milk, and School and Early Years Finance (Amendments Relating to Universal Credit) (England) Regulations 2018 (SI 2018/148) coming into force.

The department is working closely with local authorities and schools to support them in implementing the changes to free school meal eligibility that were introduced in April. This has included the provision of guidance, webinar sessions, regular communications and responding to queries received via the department’s Eligibility Checking Service. The latest government statistics on free school meal rates are based on data collected before this change was introduced (January 2018 census). The next publication will be in June 2019 (based on the January 2019 census). The government is committed to reviewing the threshold level at the end of the Universal Credit rollout period.