Written evidence from School Food Matters (CPN0001)

About School Food Matters

1. School Food Matters exists to teach children about food and to improve children’s access to healthy, sustainable food during their time at school. We provide fully funded food education programmes to schools. Our experience delivering these programmes informs and strengthens our campaigns, bringing the voices of children, parents and teachers to Government policy.

2. Our submission to this inquiry is framed around our areas of expertise: school food and issues relating to children’s health and wellbeing. We have focused our response on the call for evidence on the following questions:

• What other financial support from the Government is available for families with NRPF who are facing financial hardship? How effective is this support?
• The Government has extended eligibility for free school meals to some categories of children with NRPF on a temporary basis. What has been the impact of this policy?

Our Response

3. All children in school years Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 are entitled to free school meals (FSM) under the Universal Infant Free School Meals (UIFSM) scheme. UIFSM have been shown to have a positive impact on bodyweight, attendance, concentration and attainment, especially for children from more deprived backgrounds.[1],[2]

4. Before the pandemic, once children enter Year 3, only those who meet benefits-related entitlement criteria are eligible to receive FSM. Since families with NRPF cannot claim the relevant benefits, their children cannot be eligible for FSM.

5. During the pandemic, the Government extended FSM eligibility to include some children from families with NRPF. This welcome decision helped many who were at risk of food insecurity but were ineligible for FSM.

6. We saw this in our own Breakfast Boxes project, which provided food aid during the pandemic for families in need in London. 17% of children we helped, who were not eligible for FSM, came from families with NRPF.

7. The Government has suggested that the extension of FSM to children from families with NRPF is temporary. We implore the Government to make this extension permanent, as to remove it would be taking meals away from children who have already been identified as being in need.

8. Research by the Unity Project has found that over half of parents with NRPF said their child had been unable to eat a hot meal for at least one day because they could not afford to provide it.[3] As such, the Government-commissioned National Food Strategy report recommends that FSM eligibility should be extended to children who are undocumented or have NRPF.[4]

9. Such an extension would be in line with the outcome of legal proceedings earlier this year, which saw the Department for Health and Social Care concede that the Healthy Start Scheme should be extended to families with NRPF.[5],[6]

10. The current school food system is fragmented and broken, with excessive complexities in all elements from funding to access, including various eligibility criteria, meaning too many children are missing out. This is why we are calling for the Government to undertake a comprehensive review of school food, including of the eligibility criteria which will allow children with NRPF to access nutritious, sustainable and enjoyable food in school.[7]

September 2021