Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to increase the registration of eligible children for free school meals; and whether she plans to introduce free school meal auto-enrolment in the Child Poverty Strategy.

We want to ensure that all families who need it are able to claim the support they are eligible for. Creating a new threshold for free school meals will ensure that all children from households in receipt of Universal Credit are eligible, making it easier for parents to understand their entitlement.

The government is also taking action to make it quicker and easier for both families and local authorities to get children signed up for free school meals by rolling out improvements to the eligibility checking system used to verify entitlement to free school meals.

The Child Poverty Taskforce will publish a Child Poverty Strategy in the autumn that will deliver measures to tackle the structural and root causes of child poverty. The Taskforce will continue to explore all available levers to drive forward short and long-term action across government to reduce child poverty.