Unlock Editor’s Digest Lock for Free
Around 500,000 extra children in the UK are eligible for free school meals under the expansion of the scheme as Keir Starmer tries to get away from the backbench rebellion of Labour lawmakers.
All children in households receiving the government’s most ubiquitous benefits, universal credit, are entitled to free school lunches, the minister will announce on Thursday.
Since 2018, children are eligible for free school lunches if their household income is less than £7,400 a year, and with the exception of profits, the hundreds of thousands of children living in poverty (which means many families receive universal credit).
The policy is set to cost around £1 billion over the three years covered by future government spending reviews between 2026 and 2028, the government said.
The government estimates that expanding access to free school lunches will remove around 100,000 children from poverty across England.
Priority states, “Feeling more children for free every day is one of the biggest interventions you can do to spend more money in your parent’s pockets, tackle the dirt of poverty, and set up your children to learn.”
The announcement comes as the prime minister fights criticism from backbench lawmakers and voters over his decision to cut welfare payments for pensioners and disabled people.
The priority is to face his biggest uprising of £5 billion when his decision to cut welfare spending by £5 billion by taking disability benefits from around 800,000 people voted by lawmakers.
He already told MPS that he plans to reverse his controversial decision to strip around 10 million pensioners of winter fuel payments last summer. Prime Minister Rachel Reeves confirmed on Wednesday the changes to eligibility that will allow more people to benefit by winter.
The priority also shows that he is keen to scrap the two children’s benefits caps, a key contributor to child poverty and is widely disliked by the backbench Labour MPs.
Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the National Alliance of Education, described the move as “positive,” but added that “the cost of a continuing life crisis means that many children in families who are disqualified from universal credit will also miss out on hot, healthy school lunches.”
“Ensuring free school lunches for all children is the next urgent step that needs to be taken,” he added.
