Experts back DfE's claim free school meals plan will lift 100,000 English children out of poverty but say only over time

The Guardian

05-06-2025

Update:
Date: 2025-06-05T08:27:12.000Z
Title: Experts back DfE's claim free school meals plan will lift 100,000 English children out of poverty – but stress only over time
Content: Good morning. Normally child poverty is not at the centre of the national political debate (although it probably should be). But yesterday, at PMQs, Kemi Badenoch did make it a lead talking point by asking Keir Starmer if he would commit to keeping the two-child benefit cap, the Osborne-era benefit cut that is seen as a key driver of child poverty. She was doing this not because she wanted to promote the Tories as supporters of child poverty (although arguably that is one interpretation of her stance), but because she knows the policy is popular with voters who accept George Osborne's argument that it is unfair for the state to pay very poor people to have more than two children when many other parents restrict the number of children they have depending on what they can afford. (Welfare experts say this is a grossly misleading caricature of why people with three or more children end up needing benefits, and that even if it was true it would be unfair to punish children, but in the court of public opinion, the Osborne argument still seems to be winning.) Badenoch was using as a classic 'wedge issue', and her question was designed to force Starmer to choose between siding with Labour MPs (who want the cap to go) and mainstream voters (who want to to stay, by almost two to one, according to some polling).
Badenoch did not get very far because Starmer just dodged the question. (That does not mean she was wrong to identify this as a dilemma for Labour; it just means Starmer avoided it becoming a problem yesterday.) It is still not clear what Starmer will do about the two-child benefit cap. But he told MPs at lunchtime yesterday: 'I believe profoundly in driving down poverty and child poverty.'
And, overnight, the government has announced a policy that has been widely welcomed and that will reduce child poverty in England. It is going to extend access to free school meals for poorer children. In a news release the Department for Education says:
Over half a million more children will benefit from a free nutritious meal every school day, as the government puts £500 back into parents' pockets every year by expanding eligibility for free school meals.
From the start of the 2026 school year, every pupil whose household is on Universal Credit will have a new entitlement to free school meals. This will make life easier and more affordable for parents who struggle the most, delivering on the government's Plan for Change to break down barriers to opportunity and give children the best start in life.
The unprecedented expansion will lift 100,000 children across England completely out of poverty.
But not immediately. In an analysis, which is generally positive about the announcement, the Institute for Fiscal Studies says that, although eventually 100,000 children in England will lifted out of poverty by this measure, in the short term the figure will be much lower.
Christine Farquharson, associate director at IFS, explains:
Offering free school meals to all children whose families receive universal credit will, in the long term, mean free lunches for about 1.7 million additional children. But transitional protections introduced in 2018 have substantially increased the number of children receiving free school meals today - so in the short run, today's announcement will both cost considerably less (around £250m a year) and benefit considerably fewer pupils (the government's estimate is 500,000 children). This also means that today's announcement will not see anything like 100,000 children lifted out of poverty next year.
It is the big announcement this week, linked to next week's spending review, with positive news for Labour MPs and supporters. (Yesterday's was about a £15bn transport infrastructure programme.) Westminster sceptics think the Treasury is trying to buy some goodwill ahead of an actual announcement that will generate grim headlines about spending cuts.
It is also not clear whether today's child poverty story is evidence that the governnment is moving towards the abolition of the two-child benefit cap, which would have a much bigger impact on child poverty reduction, or whether it is just a substitute for it.
The free school meals announcement just covers England. England often lags behind the devolved governments in welfare policy, and it is worth pointing out that they have more generous provision on free school meals anyway. In Scotland all children get them for their first five years in primary schools, in Wales all primary school children get them, and in Northern Ireland a means test applies, but it is more generous than the English one. In Labour-run London all primary school pupils also get free school meals.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Pat McFadden, Cabinet Office minister, takes questions in the Commons.
Morning: Keir Starmer is visiting a school in the south-east of England, where he is due to speak to broadcasters.
After 10.30am: Lucy Powell, leader of the Commons, takes questions from MPs on next week's Commons business.
11am: Mel Stride, shadow chancellor, gives a speech at the RSA thinktank where he will say the Tories will 'never again' risk the economy with unfunded tax cuts like those in Liz Truss's mini-budget.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
And in Scotland people are voting in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse byelection, where the death of an SNP MSP has triggered a byelection.
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