Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans his Department has to provide meals for disadvantaged school children during school holidays in 2020 in (a) Liverpool West Derby constituency and (b) the UK.

During the 2018 summer holidays the Department awarded £2 million to 7 organisations to deliver free healthy food and enriching activities to disadvantaged children. With this money, the Department were able to support more than 280 clubs and reach around 18,000 children.

In 2019, this funding was more than quadrupled to explore a model of local coordination of free holiday provision in 11 local authority areas, reaching around 50,000 children.

In 2020, the Department will again invest £9 million to support children and their families. Officials are currently processing the bids received and the Department will announce the outcome and the chosen organisations and locations in due course. This has been a competitive bidding process and all areas were able to apply for this funding.

The scheme operates in England only as education is a devolved matter.