PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Free School Meals: Children with SEND - 10 January 2024 (Commons/Westminster Hall)

I beg to move,

That this House has considered access to free school meals for children with special educational needs and disabilities.

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq, and thank you to all of the hon. Members for supporting the debate today. I am pleased to be leading this debate on fair access to free school meals for disabled children and those with special educational needs, to ensure that their voices are heard in this House.

I thank my constituent Irene Dow, because it was after meeting Irene and hearing about her experience as a parent and the shocking unfairness in the current system that I applied for the debate. In the Gallery with her are staff and campaigners from the charity for families with disabled children, Contact. Their incredibly powerful research and campaigning has been fundamental to the debate, and the support they have given to families has been absolutely invaluable.

It was a privilege today to meet campaigner and parent Natalie Hay, who is here with her son. She started campaigning on this issue after realising that many disabled children were eligible for free school meals but were unable to access them. I commend her for her interview today on Sky, for many reasons. I place on record the importance of the work that Irene, Natalie, Contact and many other campaigners do, and I pay tribute to everything they have done to put this injustice on the political agenda. They should not have had to fight this hard and for so long, and I sincerely hope that the Minister will be able to give us assurances that the Government will act swiftly in response. We saw, at Prime Minister’s questions today, how fast the Government can act to respond to an injustice, if the political will is there.

The key issue I wish to raise is that thousands of children with special educational needs and disabilities are missing out on the free school meals that they are eligible for due to their disability or sensory needs. That is despite the law being clear that most should be offered an alternative, such as a supermarket voucher. Children with conditions such as diabetes, epilepsy and autism are subsequently missing out on the equivalent of £570 a year of financial help. That is causing many families to fall into debt and means that they need to turn to food banks, which is completely unacceptable and totally unnecessary. Contact calculates that more 164,000 disabled children are unable to access their free school meals.

Does my hon. Friend agree that food bank numbers are at a record high? Children are going to school hungry, and this is often the only hot meal that they will have. On top of that, if children with sensory needs or disabilities are missing out on their entitlements, the Government and statutory organisations need to do a lot more to make sure that no child misses out on those.

I totally agree. Contact calculates that more than 164,000 disabled children are unable to access their free school meals despite meeting the Government’s eligibility requirements. That is truly shocking. Access to food is a basic human right, and campaigning for universal free school meals is one of the five key asks of the “Right to Food” campaign. While we wait for that, we must ensure that the current system is fair and equal and that it delivers, in practice, what it claims to deliver. Disabled children and their families are already more likely to be living in poverty due to the difficulties of juggling care and work. Research shows that they have also been disproportionately affected by cost of living pressures and the pandemic.

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech on this very important subject. Does he agree that it is utterly unacceptable that 60% of the disabled children who are eligible for free school meals cannot eat school meals due to health conditions, dietary requirements or sensory processing difficulties? Schools must make reasonable adjustments to ensure that disabled children can access the free lunches that they are entitled to, and the Department for Education must step up and support schools to do that.

Absolutely, and I will cover that in my speech. Contact has found that 85% of families missing out on their free school meals entitlement reported that this has hugely increased pressure on their weekly budgets. Last year, I met my constituent Irene, along with a representative of the charity Contact, and they talked to me about why so many disabled children are missing out on free school meals and what can be done about it.

My constituent’s son, aged 15, is severely autistic and has avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder. Since the age of six, he has been at special school. He cannot eat the school food, because of his highly restricted diet. He mostly eats bread, butter and sometimes a bit of cheese and ham. For him, it is about the sight and texture of the food as well as the taste. That means that his mum has always made and paid for his packed lunches, even though he has been eligible for free school meals throughout his school life, which has been over a decade.

As Natalie highlighted in her interview this morning, it was only during lockdown that many families received their free school meals in the form of supermarket vouchers. The vouchers were cut off after schools reopened, and children were once again wrongly denied the free school meals to which they are entitled. We know that support can be given, so that is inexcusable.

I represent a constituency with one of the highest rates of child poverty in the entire country, and we know only too well that the current situation is compounded by the SEND funding crisis. Does my hon. Friend agree that a simple solution to the problem would be to update the Government’s FSM guidance to make it clear that schools must make reasonable adjustments, such as ensuring that supermarket vouchers can be made available, and to write to all schools to make sure that they communicate that more widely?

I thank my hon. Friend for that point, with which I absolutely agree and which I will cover later in my questions to the Minister.

We know that support can be given. It is therefore absolutely inexcusable that I am standing before the Minister today to tell him that 164,000 children are not receiving their free school meals. Research carried out by Contact in March 2023 with 1,500 families found that there are different reasons why disabled children cannot access their free school lunch. That includes 60% who cannot eat school meals due to their health condition, dietary requirements or sensory processing difficulties, 22% who are off school because of a long-term medical condition or illness, and 18% who are not in school because they have an education package provided by the council or are waiting for a suitable school place. Many parents are incorrectly being refused food vouchers as a reasonable adjustment; others are being asked to travel miles to pick up a food parcel that does not include food that their child can eat. Families should not have to face that battle.

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. I pay tribute to his tireless work in campaigning on issues related to hunger; he is exemplary in that regard.

Today’s debate is particularly timely because yesterday it was announced that primary school children in London would receive free lunches for another year. Will my hon. Friend join me in commending that action on behalf of the authority in London and in saying that surely we can follow that across England? Does he agree that it is important that allowance be made for disabled children in receiving their school meals if they are unable to access the meals that other children are receiving

I totally agree. Sadiq Khan and his team in London deserve a huge amount of credit for extending the scheme to the second year. Hopefully that can be replicated soon across the country.

Section 512 of the Education Act 1996 places a duty on maintained schools, academies and free schools to provide free school meals to pupils of all ages who meet the criteria. The meals must be provided to all eligible pupils, either on the school premises or at any other place where education is being provided. That could take, for example, the form of a voucher. Schools also have a duty under section 20 of the Equality Act 2010 to make a reasonable adjustment to the way in which free school lunches are delivered if the standard way of delivering them puts a disabled pupil at a substantial disadvantage compared with other pupils. However, many schools are unaware of their responsibilities, as the Government’s free school meal guidance is silent on a school’s duty to make reasonable adjustments and fails to make reference to the Equality Act altogether. That means that even when parents ask for alternative provision, schools are not complying with equalities law. Parents are therefore put in a difficult position in which they are in conflict with the school and then face a battle to challenge the refusal.

I call on the Government to take responsibility, update the free school meals guidance, and provide any additional resource and support needed to schools and local authorities to make this happen immediately. It must be made clear that schools and councils need to provide an alternative—ideally a supermarket voucher—to disabled children who cannot access a free school meal in the regular way. I believe that if the Government addressed the issue and established supermarket vouchers as an alternative to free school meals and an acceptable reasonable adjustment, it would give a workable solution to a situation that so many people find themselves in, as we saw during lockdown.

Last month, the Government conceded that free school meals should be provided to eligible children who are unable to attend school due to their special educational needs and have the package of support often referred to as EOTAS—education otherwise than at school. The Secretary of State for Education has said that it may be a breach of article 14 of the European convention on human rights if children receiving state education other than at school are not provided with meals; the Government are therefore preparing guidance for local authorities, which is expected in March 2024, to ensure that local authorities provide access to a meal for those with EOTAS. That really is welcome: it means that almost 2,000 disabled children across England who have been missing out on a free school meal may now get funding for a free lunch from their local council.

I will finish by asking the Minister five questions. First, will he ask his Department to update the free schools meals guidance to make clear to schools, governing bodies and councils that eligible disabled children can be offered a free school meal in the form of a voucher? Secondly, will he update the free school meals guidance so that it clearly references the Equality Act and the duty to make reasonable adjustments? Thirdly, will he write to all schools about the duty to make reasonable adjustments to the way in which free school lunches are provided so that disabled children do not miss out, and will his Department support schools to ensure the provision of appropriate food at school for children with special educational needs and disabilities that caters to their individual needs? Fourthly, will he use this opportunity to confirm to the House his intentions to produce new guidance on free school meals for children with education otherwise than at school, and to set out timescales for that guidance and how his Department will work with parents to co-produce it? Finally, many parents of disabled children have raised the issue that they are unable to access the Government’s breakfast and holiday schemes. Will he commit to meeting campaigners from Contact and addressing this immediately?

We are living in a country where millions of children are suffering from hunger. Our fight for their right to food will continue. The Minister can make a huge difference right now to the lives of over 164,000 children in this country, without any change in legislation. This is such a simple fix. I and so many struggling families hope that he will do the right thing today.

Order. I remind hon. Members to stand if they want to make a speech, so that we can calculate how much time everyone gets.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) on securing this debate and on the way in which he opened it. I also thank Stefanie Curran of Punk Against Poverty, which is based in Torbay, for supplying information to help me in preparing my remarks.

The provision of free school meals is not only a way of supporting families, but a way of ensuring that children are ready to learn and engage with their lessons. It has been good to see this provision supplemented in recent years by the holiday activities and food programme. I have been very pleased to see the excellent work being done to provide the programme in Torbay—especially the work undertaken by the Love Enterprise community interest company in Paignton, which is working to support children aged 11 to 16 over the Christmas holidays. I take on board the point well made by the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby about the need to think about how that provision can be well accessed.

The law is clear: section 512 of the Education Act 1996 places a duty on maintained schools, academies and free schools to provide free school meals to pupils of all ages who meet the criteria. These meals must be provided to all eligible pupils

“either on the school premises or at any place other than the school premises where education is being provided”.

Schools also have a duty under section 20 of the Equality Act 2010 to make reasonable adjustments to the way in which free school meals are delivered if the standard way of delivering them puts a disabled pupil at a substantial disadvantage compared with other pupils. However, it is clear from initial feedback that many schools may be unaware of their responsibilities. The Government’s guidance is silent on how to support disabled children in accessing a free meal if they are unable to access it in the regular way, and it does not mention a school’s duty to make reasonable adjustments.

As has been mentioned, in March last year the charity Contact surveyed 1,500 families with disabled children eligible for free school meals. It found that 60% of disabled children could not eat their free lunch because of their health condition, dietary requirements or sensory processing difficulties that made the lunch room off limits; 22% were off school because of a long-term medical condition or illness; 18% were not in school as they had an education package provided by the council, an EOTAS, or were waiting for a suitable school place; and 6% were attending a school without a canteen. Overall, it was estimated that a third of eligible disabled children cannot access the free school meal to which they are entitled, for reasons relating to their condition or disability. As a result, more than 164,000 disabled children are missing out on up to £570-worth of food each year, despite the law stating that reasonable adjustments must be made.

It is also worth noting some of the feedback I received while preparing for this debate. Even where a suitable meal provision is available in a way that can be accessed, the issue persists that children are sometimes offered a very limited choice. One parent who contacted me highlighted how her son ended up getting a jacket potato every day. Yes, it met his dietary needs, and yes, it was nutritious, but being offered the same meal every day was unlikely to provide a varied diet or encourage him to take up the school meal on offer.

We know that meeting dietary needs is not unique to school-age children. We have seen many options develop in recent years to support those with complex dietary needs. There is a range of home delivery services that we can all find on our phones, and there are options to provide vouchers that allow products to be bought from suppliers that are better able to supply something specialist.

I am conscious of time, and I am looking forward to colleagues’ contributions and the Minister’s response. There are some specific points that I would be interested to hear the Minister to cover. First, when he updates the free school meals guidance, will he make sure that it makes clear reference to the duty to make reasonable adjustments? Will he write to all schools to remind them of their duty to make these adjustments? Will he ensure that when the Government publish their new free school meals guidance, it is co-produced with affected families? What options will he encourage schools to consider in order to ensure that a nutritious free school meal that meets the dietary needs of disabled children is available? That does not mean just providing the same meal every day.

I welcome the chance to have highlighted this important issue. I hope the Minister will set out what difference can be made to ensure that those who have disabilities do not miss out on the opportunity of the hot free school meal to which they are legally entitled.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) on securing this important debate, which shines a light on the need to ensure that free school meals are made accessible to all children, including those with special educational needs and disabilities.

Just this week, there was fantastic news for all of us working to end child hunger: the London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, announced that he will extend his programme of free school meals for all primary school kids in London for another year. This follows the huge success of his programme so far, which since September has provided 17 million healthy, warm, nutritious meals to nearly 300,000 primary school children across London schools, boosting their health, wellbeing and attainment and supporting their families. But as today’s debate highlights, having free school meals for all must go beyond making sure that all children are eligible. It means scrutinising the delivery of free school meals and making sure that all children, including those with disabilities, can access them fully. That includes children like Jordan.

Jordan is five years old. He has hydrocephalus, cerebral palsy and epilepsy. Due to his disability, he struggles to eat solid food. In the past, this has meant that he could not put on weight, because it was taking him more calories to digest food than he could absorb from it. Fortunately, since Jordan was two, he has benefited from a blended diet fed through a gastrostomy button. This has helped him significantly, allowing him to put on weight and to grow. He can finally access the nutrition he needs, but Jordan’s school cannot cater for the blended diet that has benefited him significantly so far. That means that he misses out on the free school lunch he is entitled to, so his family have to send in blended food for him to make sure that he does not go hungry.

Jordan is not alone: 60% of disabled children who are eligible for free school lunches cannot access them because of their disabilities. Many children with conditions such as autism or avoidant restrictive food intake disorder are unable to eat the food provided by their school. This is an injustice. It leaves disabled kids cruelly excluded and leaves their families without much-needed support. I have long been an advocate for free school meals for all. With 4 million children living in poverty, including more than a third of children in Coventry South, there are horror stories of kids crying because they are hungry or being forced to steal food for their lunch.

We know that free school meals can be transformational. That is backed up by research that consistently shows that free school meals improve children’s health, concentration, attainment and behaviour. They are a lifeline for families, too, saving them hundreds of pounds each year, reducing stress and saving parents’ time, but it is a gross injustice to give free school meals to some children while those with disabilities are left without.

Research shows that families with disabled children would need a pay rise of £10,000 a year to cover the additional costs they incur. It is these children who need free healthy lunches the most, particularly as the cost of living crisis continues to bite, so it is vital that the Government act to address this cruel inconsistency. That means supporting schools to adjust lunches to meet the needs of disabled kids. It also means offering food vouchers as an alternative, so that where schools cannot provide food suitable for disabled children or where children are not in school because of their disabilities, families are provided with financial support to feed their children.

I want to live in a world where no child goes hungry and no families are left struggling to put food on the table for their kids. That is why I have been campaigning alongside many colleagues for over a year for free school meals for all primary school children. Today’s debate highlights the need not just to widen the entitlement to free school meals, but to make sure that there is more flexibility in their delivery. No child should be missing out just because of their disability, so let us extend free school meals to all children. Let us end the injustice that sees kids like Jordan missing out. Let us ensure that every primary school child across the UK has access to a free, healthy lunch, each and every day.

Order. The Front Benchers will start at 6.02 pm, which leaves us with a speaking limit of three minutes for each Back Bencher.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) for securing this important debate.

The reason I want to speak is very simple, and I will be brief. My constituent Emma Knops contacted me because her children suffer from coeliac disease, are dairy and soy-intolerant and have sensory processing difficulties. The issue here seems to me an incredibly straightforward one: the law says one thing and the guidance says another. The Government have a choice: they can change the law or they can change the guidance. It seems to me that there is no desire to change the law; they must therefore change the guidance.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I thank the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) for securing this debate.

Mainstream and special schools across Somerset are stretched beyond sense and practicality. Local education practitioners and local authorities are at the top of their class in delivering tailored care, but 13 years of Tory government have left them without the pens and paper they need to get on with the job.

We need to start with clear Government guidance. The free school meals guidance from February 2023 does not even include the term “SEND”. It has no specific guidance for SEND children and pretends that children on free school meals have a homogeneous identity, devoid of nuance or feeling. It is unfit for purpose. This speaks to a wider failing in Government guidance that sees disability as an optional add-on to legislation, not an integral part of it. We need to envelop children with special needs and disabilities, throughout all educational guidance.

I receive frequent representations from neurodivergent constituents who, after contact with Government services, have felt stigmatised and patronised. Often there is not a deliberate bias, but I ask that the Government consider providing education and training resources, delivered digitally and at low cost and based on the very latest clinical information.

The Liberal Democrats have already called for continuous, high-quality professional development for all teachers. It would be delivered in schools by mental health practitioners with ringfenced funding, and would prioritise early intervention and effective communication. Unfortunately, my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) is unwell and is not able to speak today, but I urge hon. Members to fully support her Bill on the issue.

SEND children are much more likely to be suspended or excluded. The suspension rate for England’s 2022-23 autumn term was four times higher for SEND pupils with an EHCP. The permanent exclusion rate was six times higher for SEND pupils without an EHCP. Parents and special guardians are left without the food support to which they are legally entitled. Food parcels rarely meet the minimum standard required, so special schools such as Critchill School in Frome need help to bridge the SEND funding gap. I have many more constituents who would thrive in these schools, where they would be understood and supported, but who cannot get in because there are simply no places.

We need to see nutritional needs included as standard on every EHCP. That includes sensory issues with certain foods; possible nutrition issues due to selective eating behaviours; and refusal to eat, or to eat in public. At the moment, schools cannot opt out and they cannot suck it up. As eating disorders campaigner Sophie Maclean told me, “Tough love just doesn’t work.”

It is indeed a pleasure to be called in this debate, Dr Huq. I first thank the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) for leading today’s debate on this issue. He often brings debates to Westminster Hall and I am always very pleased to come along and support him. They are always real issues in my constituency; this certainly is. I understand that the Minister has no responsibility for Northern Ireland, and I do not ask him to answer on the Northern Irish perspective, but I wish to add that perspective to this debate, and to support the hon. Gentleman.

The hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) referred to a person who had the same meal every day. My goodness! Where is the nutrition? Where is the variety? How do they grow and what do they eat? Everyone is probably very much aware that you are what you eat. We often talk about the importance of children in our local schools having a healthy, balanced diet that not only aids their learning but stimulates their brain. It is no secret that parents who have children suffering with disabilities or with special educational needs often require specialist diets for them.

In Northern Ireland, NI Direct has confirmed that if a child has a statement of special educational needs and is designated as having a special diet, they quality for free school meals; we have a system in place. Some 64,500 pupils in Northern Ireland have some form of SEN, and some 22,000 of those have a statement of SEN. Poverty rates in Northern Ireland have skyrocketed over the last year, which is why I am here to support the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has concluded that 110,000 children across Northern Ireland are living in poverty. The overall poverty rate is highest among children; clearly. free school meals for pupils could help address that.

I believe that what I am describing in Northern Ireland is replicated here on the mainland; the hon. Gentleman said that in his introduction. Poverty can lead to all sorts of other issues for young children in school, including obesity and dental decay. We had a debate in the Chamber just yesterday on NHS dentistry; dentistry, the food we eat and children at school are all part of the same theme. Schools play a large part in helping young people develop both physically and mentally, and in the UK, food insecurity is mostly due to households’ inability to afford nutritious food.

To conclude, every child in school has a right to a healthy, balanced and nutritious lunch. As for those with special educational needs or certain disabilities, we must always take their choices into account. Offering a free school meal takes so much pressure off parents. Parents out there who think their children may be eligible for free school meals but are not sure should get in touch with their local representative—those who are in this debate today. I urge the Minister to ensure that the same opportunities are offered across the United Kingdom, and that we do all we can to support those in food poverty.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) for securing this important debate, and for his work on the “Right to Food” campaign, which I fully support. This debate is quite personal to me. I really empathise with the campaigners and parents here today. For 27 years I was a carer to my daughter, Maria, who had severe disabilities, so I know from my own experience the pressures that are put on families.

My hon. Friend, other Members here and I were elected on a manifesto that pledged to poverty-proof schools. Free breakfast clubs and universal free school meals were at the heart of that. I am proud to still champion those policies, because the fact that so many children in Britain go hungry every day is shameful. Food insecurity can utterly blight children’s immediate and future life. It can trigger mental health problems, damage a child’s physical health and lead to obesity or restricted growth. It affects children’s school attendance as well as their ability to learn. Just ask any teacher, and they will say that a hungry child cannot concentrate in class. I cannot forget the BBC report in 2018, in which a headteacher described their hungry pupils as having “grey skin” due to malnutrition.

Six years on and after the pandemic, food insecurity still blights Britain’s children. Something has gone terribly wrong in our country. A society that cares for its children does not let them go hungry, but tragically, that is what successive Conservative Governments have done. In my constituency, over 19% of children living in and attending schools in County Durham have an SEN or EHCP, but only 9.4% of them are eligible for free school meals. As we have heard, the situation is harder for children with disabilities, with 33% of them missing out on free school meals provision. That is more than 164,000, or one third, of eligible disabled pupils missing out on their free school meals, which amounts to £570-worth of food each year.

The solutions are obvious, as my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby, outlined: update the free school meals guidance, and make it clear that schools can provide an alternative for disabled children, such as supermarket vouchers. Brighton and Hove City Council has introduced such a scheme, so will the Secretary of State pledge to do so here today? That would be a start in repairing our society’s safety net, which has been so badly damaged by the last 14 years of austerity.

It is an honour to follow all the previous speakers. I will follow on from that mention of Brighton and Hove.

Brighton and Hove is slightly, but not hugely, above the national average for young people and children who have special educational needs, and for young people with EHCPs. We are not an outrider in that sense, but we do notice more and more children not attending school, not because their parents are keeping them at home—that is another issue entirely—but because the schools are unable to provide the special educational needs support that those children need. My view is that this issue is caused by two things. The first is the disastrous austerity policies that have led to our schools suffering and unable to support pupils. Secondly—this is more controversial—I personally believe that we have had a 20-year incorrect educational project, which believes in integration only, and not that separate special schools are sometimes best for many young people.

No matter what additional support is provided, I am afraid that a pupil with sensory needs will not always manage to work in a large secondary school where there are thousands of children running around, and they can sink. However, if they are at a special school that can provide for their needs in an alternative location with sensory adaptations, usually off site, they can flourish. These schools used to be commonly provided by the mainstream—by local authorities, at a reasonable price for the authority. Then, when the children leave the school or move into mainstream school, if that moment comes, they are a big fish in a small pond, rather than a small fish with lots of sharks. I am afraid that we have shut down many of those local authority schools, and local authorities cannot afford to place pupils in special schools, so a lot of children have been put into education otherwise than at school, and are therefore not provided with free school meals.

Only yesterday, the Minister wrote to me to say:

“Regarding students receiving…EOTAS, the department’s position is that pupils must be registered with a state-funded school in order to be eligible”,

and that the Department does not plan to change that. Well, that seems different from today’s briefing from the Department, so of course there is confusion. Brighton and Hove has decided that we will skip past this confusion and mandate free school meals for all those children. They are not there because of parent choice; they have been placed there by the authority, because the authority cannot find suitable accommodation. They must be given vouchers, and the Minister should update the guidance to ensure that that happens.

It is a pleasure, as ever, to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) for securing this very timely debate. I declare an interest: I and my four brothers were on free school meals for most of our school time, so I have lots of experience of what comes with free school meals.

The Government need to listen. I have met the Minister a number of times—and you know what? I have always found him very helpful and prepared to listen; he has not changed his mind on many things, mind, but he has always been courteous. Hopefully on this occasion he will listen to what the SEND families have to say, because the track record on this issue is pretty poor.

I am a firm believer in universal free school meals for all primary and secondary school students—something that a lot of people agree with. Other people disagree with it because of various spurious arguments about universality. As one of my hon. Friends said, the Mayor of London, various London boroughs, and the devolved Governments in Wales and Scotland have shown that universal free school meals can be delivered, so I found it very distressing to learn from the charity Contact that 164,000 disabled children are missing out on £570-worth of food each year because of the failure to abide by a clear requirement under the Education Act 1996. The disregard of the duty to make reasonable adjustments for disabled children through the issuing of supermarket vouchers to ensure compliance with the Equality Act 2010 is equally disturbing.

I hope the Minister listens to what is being said in the debate. What could be more important in this day and age than feeding kids with special educational needs and disabilities? We need to look after people, and I plead with the Minister to listen to what is being said. All we are saying is that we should feed the children who are most in need.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Dr Huq. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) on securing this important debate on an issue that affects some of the most vulnerable children who have special educational needs and disabilities, and who live in very low-income households, making them eligible for free school meals.

I am grateful to the charity Contact and to Irene and Natalie, who are in the Gallery, for the work that they have done to bring to public attention the issue of children with special educational needs and disabilities who are eligible for free school meals but unable to access them, and for all their advocacy on behalf of families with disabled children. I also thank all hon. and right hon. Members who have participated in the debate. We have heard from MPs who represent constituencies right across the country, including the hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg), my hon. Friends the Members for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy) and for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle), the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Sarah Dyke), and my hon. Friends the Members for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana) and for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), and from colleagues who made interventions—

And Strangford!

Of course. It would not be a Westminster Hall debate if we had not heard from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), and I apologise profusely for that omission.

We have heard about the impact that the failure to implement Government legislation is having on families across the country. The law places a duty on maintained schools, academies and free schools to provide free school meals to pupils of all ages who meet specific criteria. Schools also have a duty under the Equality Act to make reasonable adjustments to the way that free school lunches are delivered, if the standard way of delivering them would put a disabled pupil at a substantial disadvantage compared with other pupils. These duties are not reflected in the current guidance for schools.

There is also a gap in the legislation in relation to independent schools. Many children with special educational needs and disabilities attend specialist independent schools, with funding from local authorities, under their education, health and care plans, but there is no duty on those schools to provide free school meals. That is one of the many examples of the ways in which children with special educational needs and disabilities are simply not a priority for the Government.

The system of support on which children with SEND and their families rely is beyond breaking point. The Government delayed their SEND review three times, and much of the SEND and alternative provision improvement plan will not come into effect until 2025, six years after the review was announced. During that time, 300,000 children with SEND will have left secondary school, having spent the entirety of their school education under an increasingly failing system of SEND support. This issue should be an urgent priority for the Government. The system is failing children and their families, and it is an increasingly prominent factor in the number of councils issuing section 114 notices and effectively declaring bankruptcy because they can no longer balance their budget.

The Childhood Trust has found that families of children with SEND are disproportionately affected by the cost of living crisis, and they are more likely to live in poverty than families of children without SEND needs. Our children need and deserve so much better. Labour will introduce free breakfast clubs in every primary school to ensure that no child has to start the school day hungry. We will work to make mainstream schools inclusive for children with special educational needs and disabilities, including by supporting teachers to gain the skills and knowledge they need to teach children with SEND. We will limit the number of branded items that schools can specify in the school uniform to put money back in parents’ pockets, and we will work tirelessly to end the unacceptable level of child poverty, which has been growing so shamefully on this Government’s watch.

The Tory cost of living crisis is making life hard for far too many families, and it means that in the short term, access to entitlements, such as free school meals for children who are eligible, is more important than ever, and there is no excuse for the current failure. I hope the Minister will set out the steps he will take to ensure that children with SEND who are eligible for free school meals can access them, and that schools and other education settings are properly supported to meet their duties under both the Education Act and the Equality Act.

What a pleasure it is to serve with you in the Chair, Dr Huq, I think for the first time. I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Ian Byrne) on securing this debate on an important matter, as demonstrated by the over-subscription of this debate this afternoon. For their contributions, I thank the hon. Members for Coventry South (Zarah Sultana), for Somerton and Frome (Sarah Dyke), for Strangford (Jim Shannon), of course, for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy), for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) and for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery). My hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) gave a compelling speech, and my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg) made a compelling and pithy point in his speech.

We all agree about the importance of ensuring that all children in school are given the best opportunities to thrive, and the Government are determined to ensure that every child, regardless of background or circumstances, can get the very best start in life. Today, we discuss those who have a special educational need or disability, and colleagues have raised several striking case studies of individual children and their circumstances from their constituency case load or, in some cases, from their personal family experience.

We support, of course, the provision of nutritious food in schools so that pupils develop healthy eating habits and can concentrate and learn, and free school meal provision is important to that being achieved in schools. This Government have extended eligibility for free school meals more than any other. We spend over £1 billion a year delivering free lunches to the greatest ever proportion of school children—over a third. That one in three compares with the one in six who were receiving a free school meal in 2010. That change came despite employment being up by millions, unemployment being down by a million, 600,000 fewer children being in workless households, and the proportion of those in work on low pay coming down substantially since the introduction of the national living wage in 20215-16.

Free school meal provision includes 2 million pupils who are eligible for benefits-related free school meals and a further 90,000 disadvantaged students in further education who receive a free meal at lunch time. In addition, a further 1.3 million infants in reception and years 1 and 2 receive a free meal under the universal infant free school meal policy, which we introduced in 2014. That helps to improve children's education and boost their health, and it saves parents about £480 a year. We have also introduced extensive protections, which have been in effect since 2018, to ensure that while universal credit is being fully rolled out, any family eligible for free school meals transitioning to universal credit from the legacy benefits will retain their entitlement to free school meals, even if they move above the income threshold.

Pupils are eligible for benefits-related free school meals if they or their parents are in receipt of one of the eligible benefits and have submitted a request for meals. As colleagues will know, schools have a duty to provide nutritious, free meals to pupils who are registered with a state-funded school and meet the eligibility criteria for free school meals. The provision should be made for eligible pupils either on the school premises or at any other place where education of those pupils is being provided.

There are, of course, many pupils with special educational needs and disability status that meet the eligibility criteria necessary for free meals. The latest published statistics show that 41.1% of pupils with an education, health and care plan—known commonly as an EHCP—and 37.5% of pupils who are on what is known as SEND support were eligible for free school meals provision in 2023. Similarly, many children with disabilities but not special educational needs will be eligible, and those rates are higher than the overall proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals in England.

The standard food offering provided by schools will, of course, be suitable to the needs of many of these children. However, some pupils with additional needs may require special food provision or arrangements. Let me be very clear: all schools have duties under the Equality Act 2010 towards individual disabled children and young people, and they must make reasonable adjustments to prevent them being put at a substantial disadvantage. That means that a school cannot treat a pupil unfairly as a consequence of their disability.

For the provision of school meals, that could lead to schools making reasonable adjustments to ensure that eligible pupils could still access their entitlement. For example, a school could let a pupil with sensory-processing issues go into the dinner hall before other pupils, or it could appropriately tailor the meal choices to the pupil’s particular needs. Schools do, of course, do those things and are best able to understand the individual children and the circumstances of their school.

We have published non-statutory guidance for schools to advise them generally on their duties to make reasonable adjustments for disabled pupils and to support them in doing so. I would also note that, while schools are not obliged to make such adjustments for pupils who are not disabled, many do work with pupils and their families to accommodate a variety of needs. Working with pupils to make adjustments to help them access food can, of course, as a couple of colleagues have alluded to, also help to improve attendance and behaviour. Further to that, we encourage schools to work with parents and pupils to ensure that their food provision adequately meets a diverse range of needs, so that it can be enjoyed and benefited from by all.

I thank the Minister for giving way. My involvement in this is partly informed by constituents writing to me, but also as the aunt of a child whose neurodiversity means that she has a severely restricted diet, which is basically beige things and chocolate. I know that my sister has had huge problems in trying to ensure that she gets the right support at school, but I wanted to ask specifically about the Food Standards Agency. As I understand it, the FSA has been carrying out a review into schools’ compliance with the national school food standards, because there is very little information on the extent to which schools do comply with those standards. Does the Minister also see a role for the FSA in looking at whether schools meet that criteria and are actually meeting the needs of SEND pupils in terms of dietary needs?

Obviously the quality of school food is critical, and regulations cover not only free school meals, in the sense of lunches, but all food that is available during the school day—for example, in breakfast clubs that schools provide and even in tuck shops. I may get inspiration, but I think the standards cover up to 6 pm in the evening for things going on during the school day.

When one talks about compliance with regulations, one has to think differently about what is done at a system level and for individual children. Candidly, I do not think that it is realistic to say that you could have a regulatory agency that was looking at every individual case of individual children and their requirements in that particular school, but it is important that we have those standards. If the hon. Lady would like, I would be very happy, of course, to follow up with her separately.

That, in fact, brings me on to the point that I have in front of me, which is that, where parents do have specific concerns that a school’s legal obligations regarding their child are not being met, those should be raised with the school in the first instance, and subsequently, as necessary, with the academy trust or local authority.

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. I am simply making the point that the absence of any reference in the guidance to the legislation results in a situation of conflict—

I ask the hon. Lady only to be patient. That was a central point made by the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby and clearly I need to come on to it. To be straightforward and clear, we will update our free school meals guidance to make reference to the reasonable adjustments duty that is already set out in non-statutory guidance published by the Department elsewhere, in order to heighten awareness about reasonable adjustments, in particular as it relates to meal provision among schools, local authorities and families to support local solutions. That should give parents clarity and something to point schools to when discussing their child’s needs.

Where pupils have a medical condition that impacts their access to food, section 100 of the Children and Families Act 2014 places a legal duty on schools to make arrangements to support pupils with their medical condition. The accompanying statutory guidance from 2015 included in the document “Supporting pupils at school with medical conditions” sets out that governing bodies must have regard to that guidance when carrying out the duty.

The guidance makes it clear that schools should ensure that they are aware of any pupils with medical conditions and that they have policies and processes in place so that those conditions can be well managed. The guidance is also clear that that includes how the processes will be implemented and the potential role of individual healthcare plans in supporting pupils. The guidance is clear that any individual plans should include consideration of

“access to food and drink where this is used to manage their condition”

and any “dietary requirements”.

Members also asked whether supermarket vouchers could be provided in lieu of meals. The requirements for free school meals are clear, such that eligible children should receive their free meal either on the school premises or at any other place where education is being provided. In some circumstances, it may be appropriate to provide supermarket vouchers to parents in lieu of meals. Equally, in other cases, it may be more appropriate for other arrangements to be made, such as food parcels.

The exact nature of alternative arrangements will of course depend on individual circumstances and should be determined case by case. It is rightly up to schools to decide how the provision should be made. We believe that they are best placed to understand individual circumstances, their families and their children, and to tailor their food provision accordingly. Ultimately, the best and most nutritious option is typically for children and young people to receive a hot and freshly cooked meal at school. That is what our policy supports, while allowing for alternative arrangements such as food parcels and vouchers to be put in place where necessary.

It is a condition of free school meal eligibility that children are registered with a state-funded school. Eligible pupils, including those with special educational needs and disabilities, are entitled to receive free meals. Some children are not able to attend a school setting on a long-term basis or sometimes at all, owing to their complex needs. It is right that the Government’s high-level policy and funding framework leaves flexibility for local responses to the complex needs of individual children.

The Department allocates high-needs funding to local authorities to support the education and learning of children with special educational needs and disabilities, and local authorities have wide discretion over the use of that funding. We strongly encourage parents of children with complex food needs to be in touch with their school or local authority to discuss the support available to them.

Will the Minister give way?

I will ask the hon. Gentleman to forgive me, because I want to ensure that I get through and cover the points. If I end up with more than a minute or two at the end, I will try to come back to him, if that is all right.

Order. We also need to allow two minutes for Ian Byrne to conclude.

Which makes it slightly less likely, but let us see how we get on.

I am aware that concerns have been raised in relation to food provision for the particular group of children we discussed earlier: those with complex needs who are educated otherwise than at school, commonly known—perhaps this is the point that the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown was about to raise—by the acronym EOTAS. Section 61 of the Children and Families Act 2014 allows for local authorities to make special educational provision for those children outside of a school setting. The latest published school statistics show that as of January 2023, there are about 8,000 children and young people receiving EOTAS.

Of course, not all those children and young people would qualify for free school meals under the benefits-related criteria. We fund local authorities to support those children, and decisions about exactly what is included in individual EOTAS packages rightly fall to them. We therefore advise parents of children receiving EOTAS to speak with the local authority if they have concerns. I note the concerns that have been raised today about food provision for children receiving EOTAS under section 61, and I can confirm that my Department will review our published free school meals guidance on that point. That will be available in the spring. We will of course work closely with stakeholders, including parents, to develop the guidance.

Free meal provision to eligible pupils with SEND is only a small part of the overall package of support rightly provided in recognition of the additional challenges faced by those children. To illustrate that, funding for mainstream schools and high-needs funding for children and young people with complex needs will be more than £1.8 billion higher next year compared with this financial year, and total schools funding will be £59.6 billion—the highest ever in real terms per pupil. Within that, high-needs funding will be more than £10.5 billion in 2024-25, which is an increase of more than 60% from 2019-20. That funding will help local authorities and schools with the increasing costs of supporting children and young people with SEND.

I realise that I am short of time, so I will conclude because I think the main points that the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby would want me to come back to are the questions that he set out, and I can reassure him on those points. On his specific question about the holidays and activities fund programme and breakfast programme, I ask him to give me more information so that I can respond more fully in writing. I hope that on his main questions about not creating new guidance, because it already exists, but clarifying and communicating the guidance to schools on reasonable adjustments for children with disabilities and to local authorities about reflecting the need for food to be considered in packages for EOTAS, he will take some reassurance from what I have said. It remains only for me to congratulate and thank again the hon. Gentleman and all Members who have taken part in the debate.

With a hard stop when the clock says 6.19 pm, I call Ian Byrne.

I thank the Minister and everybody else for speaking in the debate. As was mentioned, it was over-subscribed, which will be a comfort to all the campaigners and to Contact itself. I thank the Minister for his response and for agreeing to update the current free school meals guidance so that it will avoid any confusion and make quite clear the duties of schools to make reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act. I thank him for his comments, and I will be keeping his feet to the fire. I will write to him about the HAF, and our beady eyes will be watching the progress of the commitments that have been made. We will be in constant contact over the issue. I thank very much everybody who has contributed.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered access to free school meals for children with special educational needs and disabilities.