PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Free School Meals: Voucher Schemes (6 May 2020)

Where possible, schools are encouraged to work with their existing suppliers to provide meals or food parcels to free school meal-eligible children currently at home due to school closures. Where this is not possible, the national voucher scheme is available to support schools with this process.

The scheme allows schools to place orders for supermarket gift cards on behalf of parents and carers. These are worth £15 a week per child. Thousands of schools have already accessed the scheme, and many hundreds of thousands of families are already redeeming vouchers. Edenred has reported that over £70 million worth of voucher codes has been redeemed into supermarket eGift cards by schools and families through the scheme as of Tuesday 12 May.