‘Urgent’ free school meal expansion needs preparation ‘time’

North East MP Catherine McKinnell, the minister for school standards, was visiting Walbottle Academy in her Newcastle constituency on Thursday (June 5) after the government announced an expansion of the free school meals programme.

Any child living in a home claiming universal credit will be eligible, a move the Department for Education claims will lift 100,000 children out of poverty.

But, it will not come into force until the start of the 2026/27 academic year – a move Ms McKinnell said was to ensure schools had enough time to ‘prepare’ for the change.

“This is a moral mission for us,” she told The Northern Echo.

“We recognise the urgency of the situation and obviously we want to make sure we get this right – that the entitlements are expanded to those that need them and can access them – and also to give schools time to prepare for actually what will be a greater number of children entitled to free school meals and so that they have the time to make sure that they get that right within the school system as well.”

Catherine McKinnell MP was on a visit to a Newcastle school. (Image: JESSICA TAYLOR / UK Parliament) “Providing school meals is a big part of the school life,” the minister said.

“So making sure the systems are in place, making sure the ability to identify the children who are entitled and make sure parents get their applications in for the free school meals is really important.”

However, she ruled out automatically enrolling children into free school meals, instead saying the government wanted to see the system be made ‘as easy as possible’.

“If you’re on universal credit, you’re entitled to free school meals. And I think that’s a really important clarity for families to be able to understand,” she added.

But she failed to explain how it will benefit families in the short term after a thinktank accused the government of overplaying how many people would be lifted out of poverty.

Christine Farquharson, associate director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies said that the announcement “will not see anything like 100,000 children lifted out of poverty next year,” while Ms McKinnell argued the government’s approach was more long term, with 2029 in mind.

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The announcement has been largely welcomed by education leaders and campaigners, but some organisations have called for the Government to go further and introduce auto-enrolment.

Arooj Shah, chairwoman of the Local Government Association’s children and young people board, said: “Councils still face data sharing and resource challenges in ensuring as many eligible children as possible receive what they are entitled to.

“Introducing automatic enrolment, using existing government data to capture all those who are entitled to free school meals, would also streamline the process and ensure as many children as possible can benefit, at a time when many families are still under financial pressure.”