Under pressure from opposition MPs, ministers have admitted that no formal assessment of how many children are eligible for FSM has been made since 2013.
MPs this week sought an amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to make FSM opt-out rather than opt-in.
Last month, Munira Wilson MP, the Libreral Democrat education spokesperson, tabled a Parliamentary question asking the Department for Education for “an estimate of the number and proportion of children who would be eligible for FSM had the income threshold for people on Universal Credit risen with inflation since 2018”.
In response, Stephen Morgan MP, Parliamentary under-secretary at the DfE, confirmed: “The DfE has not made a recent formal assessment of the proportion of children who are eligible for FSM but not registered to receive the entitlement. The last review conducted in 2013 suggested that 89% of eligible pupils were registered for FSM.”
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