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.”
Mr Morgan added: “We recognise the vital role played by FSM and encourage all eligible families to take their entitlement up and join the 2.1 million pupils currently registered to receive FSM. To support FSM take up, we provide the Eligibility Checking System which allows local authorities to quickly verify eligibility for FSM and ensure that it is easily received.”
This week the Liberal Democrats tabled two amendments to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill which is currently being debated in Parliamentary committee and will soon see its third reading before MPs ahead of being sent to the House of Lords.
The amendments were discussed on Tuesday (February 11) at a meeting of the Public Bill Committee. The first would instruct the DfE to “ensure that all children in England who are eligible to receive FSMs are registered to receive FSMs”.
A second is seeking to expand the eligibility threshold for FSM to households earning less than £20,000 per year. Currently families on Universal Credit cannot earn more than £7,400 a year while those receiving Child Tax Credits cannot earn more than £16,190 if they are to claim FSMs (DfE, 2024).
During the debate, Green Party MP Ellie Chowns pointed out that based on the 2013 analysis, 11% of eligible children are not getting FSMs – around 250,000. She said this was in addition to around 900,000 children who according to Child Poverty Action Group are “living in poverty, but still not qualifying for FSMs because the eligibility criteria are so tight”.
Government figures state that 4.3 million children are now living in relative poverty (household income below 60% of the median after housing costs). This is 30% of all UK children and is increasing year-on-year. Furthermore, 17% of children living in poverty are also living in food insecure households (DWP, 2024).
Within this, 69% of these children are living in working families and 2.9 million are living in “deep poverty” – families below 50% of the median income (see Brown, 2024).
However, only 2.1 million children are currently registered to get FSMs.
Speaking in the debate on Tuesday, Ms Wilson said that “auto-enrolment for FSMs should be a no-brainer for government”.
She added: “Too many are missing out at the moment due to administrative barriers and an unwillingness to apply.”
Campaigners on this issue point to Durham where the introduction of auto-enrolment has led to 2,500 more eligible children receiving FSMs – which in turn led to a £3m boost in Pupil Premium for local schools. Only 15 families opted out.
A report from Durham County Council in October confirms that the 2,500 children were automatically enrolled for FSM following a data-matching exercise on their family's eligibility. It reports: “This means that 1,727 households eligible for FSMs were automatically signed up to the scheme, saving the families an average of £400 per-child, per-year on food costs.” (see Durham CC, 2024)
Back in the debate on Tuesday, Mr Morgan urged MPs not to press ahead with the amendments, pointing to the government’s plans to deliver a free breakfast for every primary school pupil and the on-going work of the Child Poverty Taskforce, which he said will be considering “a range of policies, including FSMs, to assess what will have the biggest impact on driving down rates of child poverty”. The report of the taskforce is due this spring.
Mr Morgan said that the government was spending £1.5bn a year delivering FSM provision, including universal FSMs from reception to year 2.
He added: “We recognise how important the issue is and want to ensure that FSMs are being delivered to the families who need them most.
“However, given the funding involved, this matter must be considered through the Child Poverty Taskforce and the multi-year spending review.”
Ms Wilson said that expanding the income threshold to £20,000 would ensure “that no child living in poverty goes hungry at school”.
Discussing the threshold of £7,400 per-year, after tax, excluding benefits, she said: “That leaves many struggling families without support … The threshold is far too low.”
Furthermore, Ms Wilson pointed out that the FSM threshold was last uprated in 2018 – something Headteacher Update has reported on. She added: “We know the huge cost of living crisis that households have had to deal with since then. For those on low incomes, that has often meant the difference between heating and eating, and children turning up to school with empty lunchboxes.
“I saw a mother at my surgery last year who was having to skip her mental health medication to use the prescription money she saved to pay for lunch for her daughter.”
Ms Wilson refused to withdraw her two amendments during the debate and will now be seeking support from MPs across Parliament.
Speaking after the debate, Ms Wilson said: “I’ve heard from parents in my constituency who are giving up prescriptions so that they can afford to feed their children – with hundreds of thousands of families in poverty struggling to scrape together enough to send their children to school with a meal.
“It’s unbelievable that Mr Morgan thinks that ‘encouragement’ is all that’s needed to fix FSMs uptake in this country. He’s wrong – we need proper reform to the system, so that eligible children automatically get the food they need.
“That’s why we’ve tabled an amendment to auto-enrol eligible kids to receive FSMs – and why we’ll be urging MPs of all stripes to back my amendment.”
- Brown: Child poverty: Statistics, causes and the UK’s policy response, House of Lords Library, 2024: https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/child-poverty-statistics-causes-and-the-uks-policy-response/
- DfE: Free school meals: Guidance for local authorities, maintained schools, academies and free schools, March 2024: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65fdad5965ca2f00117da947/Free_school_meals.pdf
- Durham CC: Thousands of families auto enrolled for free school meals, October 2024: www.durham.gov.uk/article/31977/News-Thousands-of-families-auto-enrolled-for-free-school-meals
- DWP: National statistics: Households Below Average Income: An analysis of the UK income distribution, March 2024: www.gov.uk/government/statistics/households-below-average-income-for-financial-years-ending-1995-to-2023/households-below-average-income-an-analysis-of-the-uk-income-distribution-fye-1995-to-fye-2023#children-in-low-income-households
- UK Parliament: Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill: https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3909
- UK Parliament: Free School Meals: Parliamentary question, January 2025: https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2025-01-06/22088