Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether she has made an assessment of the potential merits of permitting the proactive use of data by local authorities to identify and register children eligible for free school meals.

Maximising the take up of free school meals is important in ensuring that as many eligible children as possible benefit from a healthy and nutritious meal. The department aims to make it as simple as possible for schools and local authorities to determine eligibility.

To support this, an Eligibility Checking System has been provided to make the checking process as quick and straightforward as possible for schools and local authorities.

The department has looked at this issue and considers there to be merit in local authorities exploring initiatives to maximise take up and to better understand the barriers that prevent such take up, whilst ensuring adherence to legal and data protection constraints.