Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the ability of all further education institutions to provide free meals to qualifying 16 to 18 year old students.

During the development of the new policy to provide free meals to disadvantaged 16- to 18-year-old students in further education (FE) institutions, officials visited colleges to gain an understanding of their current facilities and discuss with them the implications of implementing the policy.

We also sought the views of, and took on board comments from, a number of bodies representing FE sector institutions. As a result, we took steps to ensure that the new requirement was introduced in as flexible way as possible and did not require the creation of new facilities.

We are not aware of any institutions that are not complying with the requirement to provide free meals.