Half a million more children will receive free meals every school day after the government announced a significant expansion of the programme, which it says will lift 100,000 pupils out of poverty and put £500 in parents’ pockets, The Independent reports.
From the start of the 2026 school year, every child whose family receives universal child benefit will be entitled to free school meals, the government announced on Thursday.
Since 2018, children have only been entitled to free school meals if their family’s income was below £7,400 a year, meaning hundreds of thousands of children living in poverty were unable to access it.
As of January last year, nearly 2.1 million children in England were eligible for free school meals. The Department for Education said the expansion of the programme would lift 100,000 children out of poverty across England. This comes two years after The Independent’s “Feed the Future” campaign, in which we called for free school meals to be extended to all schoolchildren in England — both primary and secondary — who were living in households receiving Universal Credit but were not eligible for free school meals.
The latest move will be seen as a major concession to Labour MPs who are concerned about the government’s course of action, with cuts to social benefits on the horizon and calls from Sir Keir Starmer to scrap the cap on second-child benefits.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves also announced on Wednesday that more people would receive fuel allowances “this winter,” promising to increase income checks. Announcing the expansion of free school meals, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said that “origin should not determine destiny” and added:
“Today’s historic step will help us to deliver excellence everywhere, for every child and give more young people the chance to get on in life. It is the moral mission of this government to tackle the stain of child poverty, and today this government takes a giant step towards ending it with targeted support that puts money back in parents’ pockets.”
On Thursday, Ms Phillipson said ministers would also “review school meal standards” in line with this pledge. In an interview with Times Radio, she said the expansion of the meal programme would be funded and the government would “make sure schools have everything they need to deliver it.” As the changes will not come into effect until September 2026, Ms Phillipson said the government was working “as quickly as it can.” The move was welcomed by campaigners and trade unions, with the Child Poverty Action Group saying it would be a “turning point for children and families.”
