B

Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 10 June 2025

Debate

Free School Meals

Contribution

My Lords, I join the congratulations to my noble friend and the Government. This is very good news at a time when good news is particularly welcome. I also welcome the welcome from the Lib Dem Front Bench and the very responsible and sincere questions about how many children will benefit from the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. Does my noble friend agree that compulsory education for primary and secondary school children was one of the greatest things about the post-war, cross-party human rights consensus? Does she also agree that we would not dream of charging children or parents for heating, security and pencils during the compulsory school day and therefore it was always a little odd that food was charged for? Given the concerns about the number of children who benefit, stigmatisation et cetera and all the obvious logic that we have heard from noble friends about the learning benefits as well as the anti-poverty benefits of nutrition in school, might we one day, with this level of consensus, aspire to—my noble friend chuckles because she knows where I am going with this—universal free school meals for every child or young person in compulsory education?

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