Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate her Department has made of the number of free school meals provided in each month since 2 September 2014; and if she will make a statement.

The Department for Education does not hold the information requested. It collects data on free school meals taken by eligible pupils at one point in the year – the January school census day. The department publishes the underlying data in our statistical first release (Schools, Pupils and their Characteristics 2015) which can be found online at:

www.gov.uk/government/statistics/schools-pupils-and-their-characteristics-january-2015