Keir Starmer has refused to commit to supporting free school meals for all primary schoolchildren, as he stuck to a tough fiscal position despite pressure from inside and outside his party.
The Labour leader also declined to commit to a 6.5% pay rise for teachers as he urged the government to resolve the dispute at the centre of strike action.
Speaking before a keynote education-themed speech setting out his fifth and final “mission” aimed at removing barriers to opportunity, he said “we’ll have to wait and see” what the pay review body proposes.
Starmer, who is facing increasing calls to extend free school meals to every child in England if Labour makes it into power, said there was a “healthy debate taking place across all of society and particularly in the Labour party” when he was pressed about committing to such a policy.
Asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme if funding was a part of why he could not support the policy, he replied: “The money is a big factor, I won’t shy away from it. If we are privileged enough to come into power and serve we will inherit a broken economy, broken public services and we have to have clear rules of what we can’t afford.”
The Labour leader has come under pressure to adopt the free meals policy nationally since the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, announced free school meals for all primary pupils across the capital for a year from September.
The National Education Union has also called for long-term funding for the holiday activities and food programme fronted by the England footballer Marcus Rashford, offering free places to children whose families receive universal credit, in its policy submission to the party.
On the question of a 6.5% pay rise which an independent review body is reported to have recommended for teachers, he urged the government to resolve the dispute at the centre of strike action.
“I think they have made their proposals with the government. The government is sitting on it, which is unforgivable, because we need to resolve this strike,” he added.
“I’m not going to commit to a particular figure. I will wait and see what that the review body says. But I’ll tell you what, if we were in power, we would be in the room negotiating this.
“I think that many people watching would be pretty astonished to know that the government hasn’t been in the negotiating room for weeks and weeks and weeks, during which time this dispute is going on, during which time that massively impacts on children and young people.”
Speaking on Thursday at a college in Gillingham, Kent, the Labour leader will argue that students must be taught creativity and the “human” skills that cannot be done by computers, advocating a shift in focus for the artificial intelligence age.
He will pledge to bring dedicated “child poverty reduction specialists” into the education system.
Keeping with his practice of setting out broader goals rather than specific policies until closer to an election, Starmer will argue against the “snobbery” of dividing education into vocational or academic, saying young people require both.
