Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will take steps to ensure that after the full roll-out of universal credit no child loses their entitlement to free school meals as a result of fluctuating earnings when their overall earnings are under £7,400 in a given year.

We recognise that some households see their earnings fluctuate from month to month. To address this, we will ensure that a claimant’s earnings can be checked over a period lasting up to three months (where this data is available), rather than taking only the most recent month of earnings into consideration.