A London council is set to become the first to give free school meals to nursery, primary and secondary school children.
Westminster council will provide children aged between three and 14 with school lunches in an expansion of its free school meals programme.
It is another victory for the Standard’s School Hunger special investigation and comes after Mayor Sadiq Khan announced all primary school children in London will be given free lunches from September for one year.
Westminster council has already been providing free lunches for its primary pupils since January. It will now extend the programme to include nursery children and those in years 7, 8 and 9 of secondary school at a cost of £2 million.
Council leader Adam Hug is set to announce the plan at a council meeting on Wednesday evening.
He said: “We want to take some pressure away from families at a time when we know they are already struggling. Some parents go without to fill a lunchbox with whatever is left in the cupboard — however meagre — to ensure their child has something to eat at school. It cannot be right that children in one of the richest cities on Earth are being left to make do with scraps. We need to see equality built into the system for future generations.”
Nationally, children whose families receive universal credit miss out on free school meals if their household income, excluding benefits, is over the threshold of £7,400 a year. The Standard revealed that 210,000 London children were missing out because their families earned over the low threshold.
Now in London all children at primary school will receive free school meals after Mr Khan’s announcement. But Westminster council is going even further. All three and four-year-olds at Westminster nurseries will be given the free food. Secondary school pupils up to year 9 who go to state schools and live in Westminster will also be eligible when the scheme begins in September. It is planned to continue until July 2024.
The announcement will be revealed as part of Westminster’s first budget since Labour won control last year.
Mr Hug said: “I want Westminster to be a place where children can sit down together in the canteen without the anxiety and stigma of who can afford to eat. That lunch may now be free for those children, but we think the impact it can have on their wellbeing and life chances could be priceless.”
Southwark council plans to provide free school meals for secondary school pupils whose families receive universal credit but do not currently qualify for them. It has been funding school lunches for all primary school children since 2013. Newham, Islington and Tower Hamlets also already provide all primary pupils with free school meals.
