Myself and my Conservative colleagues in Parliament have received a lot of correspondence suggesting that our party is pursuing a policy that looks to take away free school meals from deserving children. This is the result of a misleading campaign based on scaremongering by opposition parties. I am writing this statement to clarify the Conservative policy on free school meals in a way that is grounded in substantive policy and facts. These are the key points related to this matter:
- No child will lose their meals during the rollout of Universal credit as a result of these changes.
- The Governments plans mean an extra 50,000 children will be eligible for a nutritious meal at school by 2022.
- Labour’s claim that the Government’s changes could leave over a million children without this is deliberately misleading.
- Since 2010, the Conservatives have extended the availability for free school meals to disadvantaged students in further education and introduced universal infant free school meals.
The Government has temporarily made Universal Credit a qualifying benefit for Free School Meals regardless of income so that no one loses out on their meals while the details of the new system were worked out. Keeping this measure in place would mean that some families with income of £40,000 a year would be receiving free school meals at a cost to taxpayers so I strongly contest the accusation that not following Labour’s policy of extending free school meals to everyone on Universal Credit would be unfair. Many if not most people on Universal Credit will qualify but to not means test within the Universal Credit system in some way would make the policy unnecessarily costly and not to the benefit of the worse off.
To absolutely clarify, the Government’s approach will mean that:
- If you receive a free school meal now – you will continue to do so until the end of the rollout of Universal Credit, planned for 2022, and then to the end of ether primary or secondary school (which ever you are in at this point).
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- For example a child in year 5 on a FSM now, whose parents are on UC but have an income of £40,000, will continue to get a FSM until the end of secondary school.
- If you receive a free school meal during the roll out of Universal Credit – you will continue to do so until the end of roll out of Universal Credit, planned for 2022, and then to the end of ether primary or secondary school (which ever you are in at this point).
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- For example a child who will start school in September 2020, who has a parent who at any time before the roll out of Universal Credit in 2022 has an income below the income threshold, will be eligible for a FSM until the end of primary school.
I fully support this policy as a fair and reasonable mechanism for ensuring that those in need of free school meals receive them and those whose means are more than ample to afford school meals are not unnecessarily provided for at the cost of the taxpayer.
The Education Secretary was very clear when talking about this subject in the House of Commons on 13th March and I would encourage anyone who still has concerns about this issue to read his comments here:https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2018-03-13/debates/D6DA0988-0BFF-4CF3-9F2B-C1310F4859DD/UniversalCredit#contribution-303E4221-AF7C-4780-9303-B66B15C6E555 or watch them here: https://goo.gl/GtteGV.