Commons Sense

House of Commons · Ministers' Questions

Free School Meals: Impact on Children and Parents

Monday 11 December 2023 · 2 questions

Summarised by AI from the official record, so it can contain mistakes.

Read the full transcript on Parliament.uk

At a glance

Answered 1 Partly answered 1 Not answered 0

Key points

  • Free school meals support disadvantaged families to the value of 480 a year in England.
  • The Government have expanded free school meals to cover more than a third of pupils in England.
  • The national funding formula includes a lump sum of 134,000 for every school, regardless of size.

Topics (select to filter)

Questions & Answers

Q1 Sheryll Murray Con
Education
Context

Free school meals are provided to support disadvantaged families, but there is a concern about their impact and effectiveness.

Question

What recent assessment her Department has made of the impact of free school meals on children and their parents?

Answer from Damian Hinds

Free school meals support disadvantaged families to the value of £480 a year, ensuring that eligible pupils receive a healthy, nutritious meal. The Government have expanded free school meals more than any other in recent decades; now, more than a third of pupils in England receive them, compared with a sixth in 2010.

Partly answered

Not addressed: The impact assessment requested was not provided; instead, information about the expansion and current coverage was given.

How: Under Review

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Q2 Sheryll Murray Con
Education Economy
Context

Inflation has increased the costs of providing free school meals, and smaller schools face challenges due to lack of economies of scale.

Question

Recently, we have had high food inflation. While I welcome the fact that the Government have now halved inflation, one of my small schools has told me that it is unable to provide free meals within the money allocated, as it cannot benefit from the same economies of scale as larger schools. Will my right hon. Friend review the funds available for small schools?

Answer from Damian Hinds

I acknowledge my hon. Friend's point. The national funding formula recognises that some schools are necessarily small and do not have the same opportunities to realise economies of scale. Every school receives a lump sum, irrespective of its size—£134,000 for next year—and the Government have reformed the sparsity factor, increasing funding for that from £42 million in 2021-22 to £98 million in 2024-25.

Answered
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