The minister in charge of school food has said he is “keen to learn” from Sadiq Khan’s rollout of free school meals to all primary pupils to inform “how we may take further interventions in future”.
Labour has faced growing calls to extend free school meals eligibility to all children from households claiming universal credit, and from some quarters to go further and provide free lunches for all pupils, regardless of means.
At present, universal meals are only provided to infants, while older pupils receive meals if they have a pre-benefit household income below £7,400.
Asked about expanding free lunches, Stephen Morgan told a fringe event at the Labour conference the “difficult financial climate” meant the government was focusing on its plans for breakfast clubs in every primary school.
“If we had a different inheritance, obviously we’d be having other conversations around the value of school food and the benefit it can bring to other aspects of school life.”
But he said he was “very keen to learn from what Sadiq has been doing in London, and I think we’ve got to make sure that the evidence is there to demonstrate how we may take further interventions in future”.
He added that it was “very much a live conversation I’m having with the DfE and learning from local authorities that are already doing this”.
It comes after the National Education Union, which campaigns for universal free meals for all pupils, staged a demonstration outside the conference with Liverpool school pupils to put their case to the new government.
Minister ‘hopes’ for more funding
Labour has pledged £315 million for its breakfast clubs and plans to legislate via its children’s wellbeing bill to make them mandatory for all primary schools.
But it is understood that figures was not calculated based on 100 per cent take up of the clubs, leading to concerns schools might have to subsidise them from their wider budgets, or that the quality of food would suffer. Labour has not said what take-up it anticipated.
Pressed by Schools Week on whether further funding would be made available if take-up exceeded expectations, Morgan said it was “a clear manifesto commitment we want to deliver on and we want to roll that out as quickly as possible”.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves this week announced a £7 million early adopter rollout of the clubs from April, working with around 750 schools.
“Obviously, we’ve got the spending review coming up as well, so there will be further announcements as part of that process, but obviously we do want to deliver as quickly as possible,” said Morgan.
“And…I hope in light of Rachel Reeves making that announcement this week, the money will be there to make it happen.”
Charity says higher take-up not that expensive
Lorraine Kelly, from the charity Magic Breakfast, said 100 per cent take-up “would not cost the government that much more”
She said their costings had shown that “once you get the delivery, the equipment in schools, the school staff, the logistical support…and the mixed model provision embedded, the take up is the last thing that you need to factor in costs for.
“Once you get all those other things that are the vast majority of costing taken care of…the 100% take up would just be the phenomenal cherry on top.”
She added that the charity would be “very happy” to supply the government with full costings for 100 per cent take-up.
School food standards ‘grossly out of date’
Morgan also revealed during the meeting that he was reviewing school food standards and guidance
Pressed on how the government would ensure breakfast club food was of a high standard, he said it was “very clear to me, as a new minister of department that the current standards we have and the guidance issued to schools is grossly out of date and needs to be looked at and I hope…we can work with the sector to make that happen”.
