Labour MP presses Welsh ministers for free school meal expansion

Pressure is growing on the Welsh Labour government from within its own party to expand free school meals.

Cynon Valley MP Beth Winter said all children in Wales living in households in receipt of Universal Credit should be eligible.

The Welsh Government has faced criticism for not changing its policy.

Later on Wednesday ministers pledged to review the income threshold for free school meals but rejected Plaid Cymru's call for a change of policy.

Some backbench Labour Members of the Senedd have been among those calling for changes.

Plaid Cymru tabled a motion in a Senedd debate on Wednesday asking the Welsh Government to use unallocated funds from its draft budget.

But Labour MSs voted the motion down. 20 Senedd Members, mostly from Plaid and the Conservatives, backed the call, while 31 voted against.

In a statement on her website Ms Winter said the scheme should be extended to all schoolchildren aged seven and under, as well as those without recourse to public funds, such as asylum seekers.

She added there should be an ambition for universal free school meals in Wales in the near future.

Findings from a Welsh Government review into child poverty, which was released following a Freedom of Information request, found as many as 70,000 children in Wales living below the poverty line were not currently eligible for free school meals.

The Welsh Government said the report "no longer fully reflected" the situation due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ms Winter said that while the Welsh Government had "done some excellent work to tackle food poverty", more was required.

"An estimated 70,000 children in poverty in Wales are not eligible," she said.

"Of the four nations of the UK, this is the highest proportion of children in poverty excluded from free school meal provision and represents a clear failure of the existing eligibility criteria."

Ms Winter added she recognised there were "cost implications", but said there were also "significant costs involved in not doing it: costs to the health of our children, to families who live in poverty and to the well-being of future generations".

Later, in the Senedd chamber, a Welsh Government amendment rejecting Plaid Cymru's free school meals expansion proposal but promising to review the income threshold for free school meals, was passed.

Speaking ahead of the vote Plaid Cymru's Helen Mary Jones said money was available to extend the scheme, and accused Labour of trying to "look both ways".

"To the Labour members in these chambers, and those Labour MPs who've been making statements about this today, you can't look both ways on this. The people of Wales will not be fooled," she said.

"They will not believe you when you say you want to extend the criteria but we can't, because now we know that the money is there."

Finance Minister Rebecca Evans said further expansion of the scheme would have an impact on eligibility for other forms of funding, making it prohibitively expensive.

"The latest calculations now indicate that the additional cost would be between £85m and £100m, even before taking account of the impact of the pandemic," she said.

"Increasing the eligibility of free school meals also has a knock on effect to other policy areas.

"A rough estimate is that this policy could cost an additional £350m a year. It simply doesn't wash that this money is found from the additional funding this year's budget contains."

Ms Evans did commit the Welsh Government to making free school meals available to families without recourse to public money once the impact of the pandemic had eased.

She added that local authorities providing the benefit to such children would be able to reclaim money from the Welsh Government.