Asked by: Matt Bishop (Labour - Forest of Dean)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department plans to review the eligibility criteria for pupil premium funding so that all children from families receiving Universal Credit are entitled to support.
Answered by Georgia Gould - Minister of State (Education)
This government is committed to breaking down barriers to opportunity so that all our children have the freedom to achieve and thrive in education.
We are providing over £3 billion of pupil premium funding in financial year 2025/26 to improve educational outcomes for disadvantaged pupils in state-funded schools in England.
Pupil premium is allocated on the basis of economic disadvantage, using free school meals claims, and to support children looked after or previously looked after by their local authority
Pupil premium will continue to be allocated using the current free school meals threshold of £7,400 for financial year 2026/27.
Over the longer term, we are reviewing how we allocate pupil premium and related funding to schools and local authorities to ensure it is targeted to those who need it most, while maintaining the overall amount we spend on these funding streams.
Asked by: Elsie Blundell (Labour - Heywood and Middleton North)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to help reduce the level of school absences among working class students.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
Absence is a key barrier to opportunity. Children need to be in school to achieve and thrive. The government recognises that some pupils, including those eligible for free school meals, face additional barriers to regular attendance. This is why the department is rolling out free breakfast clubs in all primary schools from April 2026. Schools can also use Pupil Premium to fund evidence‑based attendance and behaviour support.
Our statutory ‘Working Together to Improve School Attendance’ guidance supports the attendance of all children, including those families on lower incomes.
We provide real‑time data and attendance toolkits so schools, trusts and local authorities can diagnose drivers of absence and adopt practice, including bespoke attendance targets, personalised roadmaps back to pre‑pandemic levels, and benchmarking against statistically similar schools.
This month, the regional improvement for standards and excellence (RISE) attendance and behaviour hubs will launch fully with support reaching 4500 schools nationally with intensive one-to-one support for up to 500 schools every year.
Our attendance mentoring programme is supporting 10,000 persistently absent children in ten areas with some of the worst attendance rates.
Asked by: Peter Lamb (Labour - Crawley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she plans to expand eligibility for the HAF programme to include children from low-income families not currently in receipt of free school meals.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The government remains committed to the Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme, ensuring children eligible for free school meals (FSM) can access enriching activities and healthy meals during school holidays. Over £600 million has been confirmed for the programme for the next three financial years from 2026/27. This multi-year commitment provides local authorities with stability and certainty, enabling longer term planning, procurement and investment to drive more effective and efficient delivery.
For the 2026/27 financial year, eligibility for HAF will remain at the existing FSM threshold, targeting support to those who need it most. Future eligibility will be kept under review and any changes communicated in due course.
An external evaluation commissioned by the department in 2021 found HAF successfully provided children with nutritious food whilst supporting parents to work and bringing financial relief. In a recent external survey of 20,000 parents and carers, over nine in ten reported that HAF reduced money worries during holidays and made it easier to work, alongside positive findings on the nutritional value and enjoyment of the food.
The department is committed to the continued assessment of HAF’s impact and will be conducting an evaluation during the three year funding period.
Asked by: Peter Lamb (Labour - Crawley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment has been made of the HAF programme’s impact on reducing child food insecurity and supporting families during school holidays.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The government remains committed to the Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme, ensuring children eligible for free school meals (FSM) can access enriching activities and healthy meals during school holidays. Over £600 million has been confirmed for the programme for the next three financial years from 2026/27. This multi-year commitment provides local authorities with stability and certainty, enabling longer term planning, procurement and investment to drive more effective and efficient delivery.
For the 2026/27 financial year, eligibility for HAF will remain at the existing FSM threshold, targeting support to those who need it most. Future eligibility will be kept under review and any changes communicated in due course.
An external evaluation commissioned by the department in 2021 found HAF successfully provided children with nutritious food whilst supporting parents to work and bringing financial relief. In a recent external survey of 20,000 parents and carers, over nine in ten reported that HAF reduced money worries during holidays and made it easier to work, alongside positive findings on the nutritional value and enjoyment of the food.
The department is committed to the continued assessment of HAF’s impact and will be conducting an evaluation during the three year funding period.
Asked by: Peter Lamb (Labour - Crawley)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure sustainable, inflation-linked funding for the holiday activities and food programme.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The government remains committed to the Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme, ensuring children eligible for free school meals (FSM) can access enriching activities and healthy meals during school holidays. Over £600 million has been confirmed for the programme for the next three financial years from 2026/27. This multi-year commitment provides local authorities with stability and certainty, enabling longer term planning, procurement and investment to drive more effective and efficient delivery.
For the 2026/27 financial year, eligibility for HAF will remain at the existing FSM threshold, targeting support to those who need it most. Future eligibility will be kept under review and any changes communicated in due course.
An external evaluation commissioned by the department in 2021 found HAF successfully provided children with nutritious food whilst supporting parents to work and bringing financial relief. In a recent external survey of 20,000 parents and carers, over nine in ten reported that HAF reduced money worries during holidays and made it easier to work, alongside positive findings on the nutritional value and enjoyment of the food.
The department is committed to the continued assessment of HAF’s impact and will be conducting an evaluation during the three year funding period.
Asked by: Rebecca Smith (Conservative - South West Devon)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, which local authorities in England have implemented auto-enrolment for free school meals.
Answered by Olivia Bailey - Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Education) (Equalities)
The department does not hold information on which local authorities in England have implemented auto‑enrolment for free school meals. Local authorities are responsible for managing their own processes for identifying eligible children.
This government is committed to breaking down barriers to opportunity and tackling child poverty. Introducing a new eligibility threshold for free school meals so that all children from households in receipt of Universal Credit will be eligible for free school meals from September 2026 will make it easier for parents to know whether they are entitled to receive free meals. This new entitlement will mean over 500,000 of the most disadvantaged children will begin to access free meals, pulling 100,000 children out of poverty.
We are also rolling out improvements to the Eligibility Checking System, making it easier for local authorities, schools and parents to check if children are eligible for free meals.
Asked by: Luke Taylor (Liberal Democrat - Sutton and Cheam)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps she is taking to help people with food prices.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra is taking forward a range of actions to help address food prices by tackling the underlying drivers of cost and supporting access to affordable food.
The department is working closely with the Department for Business and Trade to assess how regulation affects food businesses and food prices, through the Food Inflation Gateway. This work is helping to identify where burdens can be reduced or sequenced more effectively. Alongside this, through the Good Food Cycle, Defra set out priority outcomes focused on improving access to healthy, affordable food and strengthening local food systems.
More broadly, the Government is providing targeted support to help households manage food costs. From April, the value of Healthy Start will rise by 10% to provide greater support for pregnant women and young children, alongside work with retailers to expand access to healthy, affordable food. Free School Meals will be extended to around half a million additional pupils, saving families up to £495 per child annually and lifting approximately 100,000 children out of relative poverty. The Holiday Activity and Food Programme will also continue with £600 million in funding.
Asked by: Jim Shannon (Democratic Unionist Party - Strangford)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of trends in the level of food poverty over the last 12 months.
Answered by Diana Johnson - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
We are committed to tackling poverty and ending mass dependence on emergency food parcels.
We published the Good Food Cycle in July which identified ten priority outcomes needed to build a thriving food sector while tackling a range of food related challenges. Improving food price affordability and access, in particular targeting costs that lead to food price inflation and supporting those who most need access to healthy affordable nutrition, is a key priority.
From 1 April 2026, we are introducing a new Crisis and Resilience Fund in England. This fund aims to enable local authorities to provide preventative support to communities as well as assisting people when faced with a financial crisis, to support our ambition to end mass dependence on emergency food parcels. The Crisis and Resilience Fund Guidance for local authorities was published on 13 January 2026, enabling local authorities to prepare for delivery in line with the new fund.
The removal of the two child limit will lift 450,000 children out of poverty across the United Kingdom, rising to around 550,000 alongside other measures set out in our Strategy, such as the expansion of free school meals. These interventions will lead to the largest expected reduction in child poverty over a Parliament since comparable records began.
The most recent official statistics show for the United Kingdom, in 2023/24, 7.5m individuals lived in food insecure households. The rate is unchanged on 2022/23 but the total number of individuals living in food insecure households has increased by 300,000.
The most recent official statistics show for the United Kingdom, in 2023/24, 2.8m people, were living in households where a food bank has been used in the 12 months prior to the interview, up by 500,000 since 2022/23.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what recent assessment she has made of the potential impact of rising household costs on working parents.
Answered by Lucy Rigby - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government recognises that everyday costs remain too high for many households, including working parents. This is why, at the Budget, the Government took action to bear down on prices and help cut cost of living pressures by targeting everyday expenses.
This includes taking an average of £150 off household energy bills from April 2026, expanding the £150 Warm Home Discount to six million lower-income households, freezing regulated rail fares and NHS prescription fees for one year, and extending the 5p fuel duty cut until the end of August 2026.
The Government is also committed to making renting easier and more affordable. The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 will strengthen protections for private renters and help tenants challenge unreasonable rent increases.
Alongside this, the Government is supporting working families by removing the two-child limit in Universal Credit, increasing the National Living Wage to £12.71 per hour from April 2026, extending the £3 bus cap to March 2027, expanding free breakfast clubs, widening free school meals eligibility, and increasing support with childcare costs through Universal Credit.
The Bank of England has cut Bank Rate six times since the election as inflationary pressures have eased, helping to reduce borrowing costs for households.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what steps she is taking to support working parents with rising household costs.
Answered by Lucy Rigby - Economic Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government recognises that everyday costs remain too high for many households, including working parents. This is why, at the Budget, the Government took action to bear down on prices and help cut cost of living pressures by targeting everyday expenses.
This includes taking an average of £150 off household energy bills from April 2026, expanding the £150 Warm Home Discount to six million lower-income households, freezing regulated rail fares and NHS prescription fees for one year, and extending the 5p fuel duty cut until the end of August 2026.
The Government is also committed to making renting easier and more affordable. The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 will strengthen protections for private renters and help tenants challenge unreasonable rent increases.
Alongside this, the Government is supporting working families by removing the two-child limit in Universal Credit, increasing the National Living Wage to £12.71 per hour from April 2026, extending the £3 bus cap to March 2027, expanding free breakfast clubs, widening free school meals eligibility, and increasing support with childcare costs through Universal Credit.
The Bank of England has cut Bank Rate six times since the election as inflationary pressures have eased, helping to reduce borrowing costs for households.