Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Earl of Effingham Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)]

My Lords, I speak briefly to the two amendments in this group proposed by my noble friend Lady Walmsley, which I have signed.

In particular, I want to probe and press the Government on free school meals and auto-enrolment. I know from lived experience how they changed my life. Rather than running home from school to have my dinner and then running back, with very little engagement and social time with my peers, we were instead able to eat together, talk, socialise and, in my case, discover some new foods such as lemon meringue and cheese flan—I kid you not: if my secretary and PA support, Lisa, from Sheffield Council were here, she would tell your Lordships that, often, when I went to conferences on behalf of Sheffield Council, I would say, “Ask them if they do school dinners, because that’s what I would like”. We joke, but sometimes young people get a set menu and do not get a chance to taste other foods. I am of south Asian origin, and I must say that onion bhajis did not hit the mark at my school.

More seriously, the other issue that I want to challenge the Government on is the one around the pupil premium. We have all seen that, when that extra support goes in early on, particularly when it is for young people who could benefit from free school meals, the extra money empowers teachers and teaching staff in schools to decide what they need for the young person—it could be an additional teaching assistant in schools or it could be one-to-one support or after-school stuff. We are not just talking about school meals here; we are talking about things that would change the lives of young people.

I want to press the Government and I want the Minister to respond to the point made earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, about auto-enrolment. They are pushing in the right direction, but they are not quite there—and we would like, at this stage or at the next stage, to push the Government to do the right thing. I welcome the announcement that we heard around what will happen next year with more young people being able to access free school meals. With that, I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[The Earl of Effingham (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 189 and 191 to 193 en bloc. I thank all noble Lords who have made such valuable contributions to this group thus far.

On the Thursday just past, we heard some excellent speeches in your Lordships’ House on the various issues relating to the provision of healthy, nutritious food in schools and the possibility of providing eligible children with free school meals and activities during the holidays. It is most opportune that we now have the ability constructively to challenge His Majesty’s Government around the base provision and right of those children eligible to take advantage of free school meals during term time.

Amendment 189 in the name of the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley, Lady Lister and Lady Cass, and the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, seeks to require the Secretary of State to review free school meal eligibility and pupil premium registration. It is absolutely correct that schools and local authorities should have complete and full data, and that those pupils who are eligible for free school meals actually take them up. They are clearly the pupils most likely to need free school meal provision. If His Majesty’s Government would please listen to the eminently sensible suggestions from other noble Lords last week, including those in this Committee right now, those meals will consist of healthy, nutritious food, with fruit, vegetables and low sugar levels in both food and drink. Healthy nutritious food and free school meals for every pupil eligible will hugely aid the learning and development of children in the UK.

Both Amendment 191 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett and Lady Lister, and Amendment 193 in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley, Lady Lister and Lady Cass, and the noble Lord, Lord Mohammed, seek to change the system of enrolment for free school meals so that there is auto-enrolment for all eligible families. It appears that difficulties can arise during the application process and, for some, the forms can be overly complicated, but it is crucial that eligible families are able to access this provision. We understand that changing the system in this way is far from straightforward, but some local authorities are investigating how to make such a system work, and our observation to the Minister is that this is surely worth fighting for. Ensuring that all pupils who should receive free school meals do indeed receive them would, we believe, be a top priority on every Bench of your Lordships’ House.

Amendment 192, in the name of the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Lister, seeks to expand free school meals to all children in state-funded primary schools. While we agree that it is vital for all students to be able to access a healthy, nutritious meal at school, we suggest that this scheme would be potentially expensive to implement and that there could be a more efficient and appropriate allocation of resources and funding within school budgets. That is not to say that providing free school lunches for all primary school children in state-funded schools is a bad idea—in a perfect world, of course, it is a great idea—but we suggest that a detailed analysis is required of how much it would cost. Is it realistic to have some contribution from parents, even if small? What impact would it have on the other elements of school life if the school and the local authority had to find the funding without additional resource from His Majesty’s Government? These are just some of the questions we seek answers for from the Minister, and we look forward to hearing His Majesty’s Government’s response.

[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.

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I hope that with those assurances—and with the substantial investment that this Government are making—the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

[The Earl of Effingham (Con)]

The Minister twice mentioned monitoring the take-up. Do the Government know how many families should be claiming free school meals? That would surely help in understanding how close the Government are to reaching the goal that all noble Lords are asking for, which is free school meals for everyone who is eligible. What is that number? I do not need the answer now, but do the Government have that information, because presumably they should do?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My point was that linking free school meal entitlement to universal credit will make it much easier both for families to apply and for us to monitor the levels. However, I will respond to the noble Lord on his specific point.