Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)

My Lords, the amendments in this group relate to free school meals and follow on, of course, from the interesting debate that we had last week on wider issues relating to school food. Amendment 192, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, would extend the provision of free school meals to all pupils attending state-funded primary schools. The Government are clear about the benefits that children enjoy when they receive a free and nutritious lunch. They support attainment, because hungry children cannot concentrate and learn. By improving behaviour, nutritious and free meals also lead to better outcomes, meaning that children can get the best possible education and chance to succeed in work and life. It is in recognition of these benefits that this Government have confirmed that all children in households receiving universal credit will be eligible to receive free meals from September 2026. This represents a significant expansion of support to over 500,000 children. The Government have chosen, though, to focus this on the most disadvantaged households, which we are backing with over £1 billion in funding. This is on top of the 3.4 million children who are already provided with free meals by the Government. Moreover, by widening access to free meals, and doing it in the way that this Government have chosen, we will lift 100,000 children out of poverty by the end of this Parliament, reversing the trend of rising child poverty that we inherited from the previous Government. This is the priority that this Government have decided on. Of course, it goes alongside the rolling out of free breakfast clubs to every primary school pupil, which we had the opportunity to discuss last week, meaning, as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said, that significantly more children will have the benefit of both a free breakfast and a free lunch. Alongside that, as we have talked previously about, we are expanding government-funded childcare and legislating to cap the number of branded school uniform items. These are all serious developments in the Government’s plan to break the unfair link between background and opportunity. Amendments 191 and 193, in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Walmsley, seek, as we have heard, to ensure that all households meeting the eligibility criteria for free meals would automatically receive this without having to make a claim—something which is required under current provisions. The first and most important point is that the process of now linking free school meal entitlement to universal credit makes it far simpler and more likely that there will effectively be an automatic understanding of the eligibility for free school meals. We want to ensure that all families who need it are able to claim the support they are eligible to receive. That is why we provide an eligibility checking system to local authorities; this is an online portal that makes verifying eligibility for free meals quick and easy. We are rolling out improvements to this system, to allow parents and schools to review eligibility for free school meals independently, which will make it even easier for families to claim the support they are entitled to. These actions will support the take-up of free meals. However, we will keep under review the extent to which free meals, and all the benefits that come with them, are being taken up.