Free School Meals

Jon Trickett Excerpts

Thursday 5th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Morgan]

The hon. Gentleman is a real champion on these issues. He will appreciate that education is a devolved matter. The spending review next week will set out details on the Barnett consequentials. The child poverty strategy is a UK-wide document, and I know that colleagues from Northern Ireland have been feeding into that review. As he knows, I meet regularly with my counterpart in Northern Ireland on issues of importance to the UK.

[Jon Trickett (Normanton and Hemsworth) (Lab)]

As others have, I very much welcome the announcement. For the thousands of families in my constituency with children in poverty, this is a great announcement. However, I remember the Prime Minister’s statement that the Government need to go further and faster, so I encourage the Minister when he goes back to his Department to ensure that the child poverty strategy is as radical as it can be and is adequately resourced. I ask him to return to the question of people on universal credit with children in poverty. Can we ensure that every child benefits from this announcement, because some families lack the capacity—for all sorts of reasons—to make the appropriate applications?

[Stephen Morgan]

We of course want to ensure that all families that are eligible for this roll-out benefit from it. Working with other Government Departments, we want to make the process as simple as possible. We are determined to bring down child poverty. We appreciate that the issues are complex, and we want to get this right. We will set out more details in due course.