B

Baroness Boycott (CB)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 16 December 2025

Debate

Free School Meals

Contribution

My Lords, I thank the Government very much for extending the remit of free school meals—that is excellent news. I declare my interest as chair of Feeding Britain. One of our trustees, Professor Greta Defeyter, does a lot of research into how the economics of free school meals work. She has found that the caterers are charging so much that schools are being forced to raid their teaching and learning budgets—literally the budgets they need to buy books—to pay for this. In Wales and Scotland, the budget for school meals is 60p to 70p more. What will the Government do to close this gap, given that the bill will get much higher next September, as she just alluded to?

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