In England, state school pupils whose families claim universal
credit are only eligible for free school meals if their family’s
post-tax earnings are less than £7,400 a year. This threshold –
which has been frozen in cash terms since it was introduced in
2018–19 – means that 1.7 million pupils in England whose
families are entitled to universal credit are not eligible for
free lunches, worth about £460 per pupil per year.
Families on universal credit are also much more likely to be food
insecure than other households; overall, 30% of families
with school children claiming universal credit were classified as
having ‘low’ or ‘very low’ food security in 2021–22, six times
the rate among families not claiming universal credit.
Even amongst universal credit claimants, though, food insecurity
was highest among the lowest-income families: more than half of
families claiming universal credit and earning £200 a week or
less (before tax) were food insecure, compared with a third of
families earning between £200 and £400 a week.
With Scotland, Wales and London committed to more universal
provision – and a bill to offer free school meals to all primary
pupils in England currently before Parliament – new IFS research
published today, and funded by the Economic and Social Research
Council, explores the options and trade-offs for potential
expansions of free school meals in England. The research finds
that:
- Of the 8.4 million children in English state schools, just
under 2 million are eligible for a means-tested free school
lunch. An additional 1.5 million young children are eligible for
universal infant free school meals. Overall, just under a
quarter of pupils are currently eligible to get a free meal at
school each day, compared with a long-run average of
about one in six. The recent rise in eligibility is mainly the
result of ‘transitional protections’ brought in to ease the
transition from legacy benefits to universal credit.
-
Expanding eligibility to all state school pupils
(primary and secondary) whose families claim universal credit
could cost about £1 billion a year in the longer term,
bringing total spending on free school meals to about £2.3
billion. These long-run costs exclude the impact of
transitional protections.
- Instead offering free school meals to all state
primary school pupils (as the London mayor will pilot from
September) would also cost around £1 billion a year.
This would benefit children in Years 3 through 6 (free school
meals are already universal in Reception through Year 2).
Offering free school meals to all state school pupils (Reception
through Year 11) would cost about £2.5 billion a year, nearly
trebling current spending. This amount of money would fund a
roughly 10% pay rise for teachers. Neither of these reforms would
directly impact the very poorest children, who are already
eligible for means-tested free school meals.
- Since 2014, the per-meal funding rate has lost 16% of its
value in real terms. The funding rate currently stands at £2.41
per meal; if it had increased in line with inflation (as measured
by the Consumer Prices Index), it would now be £2.87.
Restoring the funding rate to its 2014 level would cost
an extra £250 million a year in current prices.
- These costs do not include any additional capital funding
that would be needed to expand school kitchens and dining areas.
As a rough guide, when universal infant free school meals were
introduced in 2014, the government provided about £150 million in
capital funding – roughly £100 per additional pupil
brought into eligibility.
- Under the current system, free school meals are not ‘tapered
away’ gradually. Parents who are earning near the £7,400 income
cap therefore have a financial incentive to avoid earning a
little more if it would mean losing access to free meals. For a
single parent with two school-aged children, this ‘cliff edge’
means that earning £7,399 a year and keeping free school
meals would be financially preferable to earning anything up to
£9,400. That is equivalent to turning down an extra four
hours of work each week at the National Living Wage.
Christine Farquharson, Senior Research Economist at IFS
and an author of the report, said:
‘High levels of food insecurity among families on universal
credit mean that policymakers such as the Mayor of London are
once again consulting the policy menu for options to expand free
school meals. The current system of means-tested free school
meals is tightly targeted at the most disadvantaged families – so
making existing provision more generous by, for example,
reversing the real-terms cuts to the funding rate would directly
benefit the very poorest.’
Andrew McKendrick, Research Economist at IFS and another
author of the report, said:
‘Universalising free school meals would affect children across
the income distribution and might have wider benefits for health
and educational outcomes, but it would also significantly
increase existing spending. Expanding eligibility – for example,
to include more families on universal credit – would focus more
of the additional spending on low-income families, but still
would not directly benefit the very poorest children, who are
already entitled to free lunches.’
ENDS
Notes to Editor
The policy menu for school lunches: options and trade-offs in
expanding free school meals in England is an IFS report by
Jonathan Cribb, Christine Farquharson, Andrew McKendrick and Tom
Waters.
