Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate his Department has made of the cost of temporarily providing free school meals to certain groups of children subject to the No Recourse to Public Funds condition.

We are working with departments, across government, to evaluate access to free school meals for families with no recourse to public funds. In the meantime, the extension of eligibility will continue with the current income threshold until a decision on long-term eligibility is made. As part of this process, we will consider whether it would be appropriate to complete a Children’s Rights Impact Assessment.

At this point data is not currently available regarding the current costs of providing free school meals to certain groups of children subject to the no recourse to public funds condition.