Millions of children will go hungry if George Osborne scraps universal free school meals for infants at the spending review, Lucy Powell, the new shadow education secretary, has said.
Powell, who is in her first week in the job under Jeremy Corbyn, said Labour was opposed to scrapping free school meals for all five to seven year olds because it could be damaging for children at the same time as the government slashes tax credits.
The Department for Education will not comment on reports that axing universal free school meals is under consideration, just a year after the policy was implemented by the Liberal Democrats in the coalition government.
But there is speculation that the policy could be abandoned, given that it is a large chunk of the unprotected element of the education budget and the Conservatives were never particularly enthusiastic about the idea. Free school meals for disadvantaged pupils are not at risk of being cut.
The £1bn scheme was criticised by some schools who had to install kitchens, but it was rolled out anyway from this September.
Powell said it now did not make sense to reverse the policy when schools have at their own cost installed new kitchens to deliver this scheme.
“Yet before it can be properly evaluated for its impact on pupils performance at school, they are shutting the door,” she said.
“The Tories never liked this scheme – we all know that – but schools have gone to a huge amount of trouble and effort to deliver it. This will be a slap in the face for them and for the hard-pressed families [the scheme] supports … There is a very real risk that scrapping free school meals combined with tax credit cuts could see millions of children going hungry as a result of this decision.”
Jamie Oliver, the celebrity chef who has campaigned for more nutritious school meals, has said scrapping the policy would be a disaster.
