We can take 50,000 additional children out of poverty this week with an extension of free school meals

By Alexandra Kemp

This week, the government will table an amendment in the House of Lords to the Child Poverty Bill to grant free school meals to primary school children whose parents are in receipt of the Working Tax Credit.

This measure is evidence of the Government’s commitment to reaching its target of ending child poverty, and is set to take 50,000 more children out of relative poverty – defined as living in households earning below 60% of median equivalised income.

Worth £10 a week for each child, it will remove a key work disincentive – the loss of free school meals – to families on low earnings and so supports the strategy of Making Work Pay in a bid to encourage more parents into work. The loss of free school meals to households on less than £16,000 a year (a parent’s WTC disqualifies a child from free school meals) can tip the balance against making work pay, particularly when added to additional in-work costs such as unrefundable childcare and transport expenses.

An amendment will also be tabled on behalf of West Norfolk Women and Carers’ Pensions Network, to extend free school meals to a further 50,000 in secondary schools too. This is why we think the Government should adopt our amendment:

* Nutrition matters for children’s health, development and social adjustment. It impacts on educational outcomes and it is important for secondary school children too, particularly in the run-up to maximising learning outcomes with good GCSEs at age 16.

* Government’s new nutritional guidelines for secondary schools are delivering real benefits for children. Teachers in disadvantaged schools report improved concentration, learning and behaviour in the afternoons and increased attendance at after-school clubs when children have eaten a school dinner.

This is in contrast to Tory policies in the 1980s and 1990s, which put profit before children by privatising the school meals service, replacing hot, balanced meals with a canteen system selling junk-food.

More choice for children to order what they like – and more autonomy for schools to source food locally – is the way forward for the provision of school meals. Both are already happening in the secondary school we took evidence from last week which has actually seen an increase in canteen income since the guidelines were introduced in September 2009, as freshly-cooked tasty food – though low in saturated fats, sugar and salt – has proved to be a hit amongst pupils.

The principle of the best start for every child means that children should not be excluded from a hot meal at lunchtime because of parental income, and research by Education Leeds shows that packed lunches almost always fall short of Government Standards for school meals.

Moreover, over a million children in families on Working Tax Credit still live in poverty – so increasing the availability of free school meals will take some of the pressure off their budgets too – if not lift these families completely clear of poverty.

From our research, we have so far distilled six economic benefits of increasing the uptake of nutritional school meals:

1. A boost to local economies with more local sourcing of vegetables, fruit and meat.

2. Potential to upskill the workforce in the traditionally gender-segregated occupation of catering, leading to future career progression.

3. Potential to create family-friendly jobs in school catering which can fit around school hours for parents wanting to return to work.

4. Potential to create more skilled jobs in IT support and the provision of nutritional advice.

5. Environmental considerations – the reduction of food miles of supplies.

6. The costs are outweighed by the likely reduction in costs to the NHS of treating long-term chronic illnesses associated with poor childhood diet and obesity, such as diabetes and cardio-vascular diseases.

The health benefits of extending school meals to as many children as possible is a flagship policy and can’t be overestimated in the ways in which it can enrich both our society and our economy.