Comment Labour out to lunch on free school meals policy
the old benefits system with a new benefit called Universal Credit. A lot of old benefits, including Jobseekers Allowance, are now part of Universal Credit.
Under the Tory plan, children will get free school meals if their parents are on Universal Credit and earning less than £7,400-a-year from work.
This figure only includes earnings. Once you take into account the benefits they receive, people earning £7,400-a-year can have an income of between £18,000 and £24,000, depending on their circumstances.
So how does the Tory plan compare to the system they inherited from Labour?
The Government claims that their policy actually means 50,000 more children will be eligible for free school meals.
And their analysis is backed by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a widely-respected think tank.
In an analysis published on April 5, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said: “Overall slightly more children from low-income households will be eligible for free school meals under Universal Credit once it is fully rolled out than would have qualified under the legacy system it replaces – an increase of roughly 50,000 children (or four per cent), costing the Exchequer an extra £20-30 million per year.”
But this figure of 50,000 is a net change. In other words, there are winners and losers.
According to the IFS, around 140,000 children will gain free school meals as a result of the new system.
But around 90,000 will lose them – which is how you get a net increase of 50,000 children (140,000 - 90,000 = 50,000). Many of the losers are children in families where nobody works but where this is money from other sources.
According to the IFS: “The lost entitlements among workless families are largely driven by the small minority of them whose unearned income or assets disqualify them from Universal Credit altogether”.
Winners tend to be children in single-parent families.
The IFS said: “The net increase in eligibility is entirely accounted for by the children of lone parents.” So there are indeed some losers. But nothing like one million children.
And while it’s certainly right to point out that there will be losers, it seems a bit misleading to do this without mentioning that the number of winners – children who gain free school meals thanks to the Tory changes – is actually higher.
So where does this figure of one million come from?
The figure of one million children is not a complete invention.
Universal Credit is being introduced slowly across the country. This began in 2013. And as part of the switchover, the Government said that on a temporary basis it would simply provide free school meals for any pupil whose parents received universal credit.
The figure of one million is the number of pupils who would gain free school meals once Universal Credit was in place across the entire country, if the Government made this temporary policy permanent.
But the Government has never suggested it would do this.
It refers to an imaginary future that nobody has ever said was going to happen.
Labour is attacking the Conservatives for failing to ensure every child in a family receiving Universal Credit gets a free school meal.
But Labour doesn’t plan to give all those children free school meals either – at least, not if they are in secondary school.
The claim that the Tories took free school meals away from one million children isn’t true... and Labour knows that