Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether earnings that an employed or self-employed person is treated as having under surplus earnings rules in universal credit count towards the £7,400 per annum free school meals threshold in England.

For determining eligibility for free school meals, we will assess the earnings of self-employed people based on their actual annualised net earned income, rather than the assumed earned income of the minimum income floor, over a period of up to three months. Where families’ actual annualised net earned income is below the £7,400 annual threshold, their children will be eligible for free school meals.