Hampshire MP warns of funding crisis threat to free school dinners

Winchester MP Steve Brine will lead a parliamentary debate raising the alarm about the issue on Tuesday.

All children in England in reception class, year 1 and year 2 are eligible for free school meals regardless of their household income.

But Mr Brine has heard from schools in his constituency who have said the funding they get to pay for infant free school meals is no longer enough to cover the cost.

He said: ‘A number of headteachers in my area have flagged to me what is a growing gap between what they get, and what they have to pay, for school meals to their infant age children.

‘They’re subsidising this from an already stretched budget and, clearly, that’s not a sustainable position in the long or even short term. They either need urgent help from ministers to bridge this gap or support from Government and local authorities to seek alternative provision.’

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One school in Mr Brine’s constituency, for example, pays £2.80 per school meal, while receiving £2.41 in funding, a gap of 39p per meal. This is an extra cost of about £3,000 a year to the school’s budget.

Mr Brine has suggested ministers may need to investigate how to make the market for providing school meals more competitive as one solution to the situation.

His warning about the growing gap was echoed by the businesses providing food to schools.

James Bielby, chief executive of the Federation of Wholesale Distributors, said the industry had been hit by energy price inflation and labour shortages. He said: ‘Although the per-pupil meal rate for Universal Infant Free School Meals was raised from £2.34 to £2.41 in 2022, it had increased by just 9p in the decade before that, and doesn’t come close to matching long-term inflation, let alone the recent spike in the cost of servicing local authority contracts.

‘This has unfortunately led to lower quality of food being supplied to schools, which has a knock-on impact on pupils with many of the benefits of school food lost, with less hot meals being served.’