Government urged to introduce free school meal auto-enrolment by MP committee

The Government should ensure children who are eligible for free school meals are automatically enrolled as part of its proposed education reforms, a cross-party group of MPs has said.

The Commons Education Committee has called for a number of improvements to the Government’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to support the most vulnerable children.

The Bill’s timetable has been “rushed and inadequate”, making it more difficult to conduct “proper scrutiny”, the committee’s report said.

It has called for all pupils entitled to free school meals to be automatically enrolled to receive them in order to alleviate hunger and improve the health and educational outcomes for the poorest children.

The committee has recommended that the inclusion requirements of school breakfast clubs should be strengthened to ensure special educational needs and disabilities (Send) pupils do not miss out.

The report added that the Government should strengthen the requirement for the mental health and wellbeing of children in the care system to be assessed, and improve support for care leavers as part of the Bill.

The Bill – which also proposes a number of changes to academy freedoms – has faced criticism from education leaders and politicians in recent weeks.

Academies, which are independent of local authorities, currently have the freedom to set their own pay and conditions for staff, and some exceed the national pay scales for teachers.

But under the Bill, all teachers will be part of the same core pay and conditions framework whether they work in a local authority-run school or an academy.

The Bill will also require academies to follow the national curriculum, and their teachers will need to have, or be in the process of achieving, qualified teacher status.

But on the proposed changes to academies, the committee’s report said: “Some witnesses expressed concerns about the reductions in academy freedoms, while others welcomed greater oversight, but on balance, there were no strong concerns about the changes to academy status.”

Committee chairwoman and Labour MP Helen Hayes said: “The committee has made recommendations designed to strengthen support for the most vulnerable children in society, based on compelling evidence from experts and from young people who shared with us their deeply moving experiences of life in care.

“This report urges the Government to tackle the postcode lottery of support offered to young people leaving care; to ensure that children whose parents struggle to put food on the table at home can get a proper meal at school; that children with Send aren’t left out of breakfast clubs; and that children facing the traumatic experiences associated with being taken into care are properly cared for and their mental health assessed in a timely way.”

Ms Hayes – who has tabled new amendments to the Bill to reflect the committee’s recommendations – said: “While we welcome the Government’s ambition in this Bill, my colleagues and I from across the political parties were disappointed by how the Government has rushed this Bill through the House of Commons at the expense of time for proper scrutiny.

“With such wide-ranging reforms that will have dramatic, lasting consequences for children and families, the DfE’s (Department for Education) need for speed should not have been prioritised over diligent examination of evidence.”

Pepe Di’Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said: “Many of the education committee’s recommendations seem sensible.

“We particularly agree with the need to introduce a system of auto-enrolment for all children and young people who are eligible for free school meals.

“This is something we have long called for, to ensure that nobody misses out unnecessarily, and should be a relatively straightforward change that could make a big difference to vulnerable families.

“We also hold concerns around the logistics and funding of the breakfast club policy and urge the Government to learn from the early-adopter scheme and make changes accordingly.”