Free School Meals

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Thursday 5th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Morgan]

As the hon. Member will have heard earlier, I will not comment on speculation. Extensive work is under way on the child poverty strategy, which will conclude later this year. I describe this not as a small step today, but as an historic moment, as we lift 100,000 children out of poverty and make sure that more children across the country can access free school meals. I am delighted that so many are welcoming our announcement today.

[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

With one in two children in my constituency living in poverty, we now have a downpayment with a breakfast club funded by the Government at Thomas Fairchild community school and thousands of children are benefiting. I am pleased that the Secretary of State has agreed with Henry Dimbleby, who opened the “chefs in schools” programme in Hackney, that we need to keep nutrition at the top of the list. My hon. Friend the Chair of the Education Committee highlighted that this is evidence-based policy. We know that the evidence on child poverty shows that removing the two-child limit will lift most children out of poverty. Can the Minister reassure us that he is really looking at that evidence, working with the Department for Work and Pensions, to make sure that this announcement is just the down- payment on tackling child poverty?

[Stephen Morgan]

As always, my hon. Friend comes at this from a very informed position. It was a real pleasure to visit a school in Hackney recently to see at first hand the brilliant work of the “chefs in schools” programme. That is why I am so delighted to say that we will be announcing further details on our school food standard work to update that guidance in due course. She mentions breakfast clubs. We have obviously tripled funding into breakfast clubs to over £30 million in this financial year, and we are making huge progress in delivering that through our early adopter scheme.