Chancellor Rachel Reeves visits Inspire Partnership’s Elaine Primary School, Strood, to promote free school meal scheme

Chancellor Rachel Reeves visited Medway to talk about expanding free school meals to more than 500,000 children across the UK.

She went to Inspire Partnership’s Elaine Primary School in Strood to discuss the government’s £1bn plans which will see an additional 20,000 Kent children receive them.

Across the county, just under 80,000 youngsters are able to get free meals which the Treasury believes will save parents up to £500 per child and lift 100,000 children across England completely out of poverty.

The Chancellor said fixing deprivation like that seen in areas of Medway, including the Strood West ward where the school is, was something the government was “determined” to do.

Many children are already in receipt of the Pupil Premium - a grant which provides funding to improve educational outcomes for disadvantaged pupils in state-funded schools.

She said: “These changes mean 20,000 more children in Kent get access to free school meals.

“If mum or dad or whoever is at home is on universal credit, the child will be entitled to a free school meal. That is at primary school, secondary school and also at a further education college as well.

“For parents with one child, that is worth up to £500 a year. Or £1,000 if you have two children. Obviously, that is significant money in a family income that will go back into the pockets of those families to be able to spend on things that matter to them.

“We are also rebuilding 500 schools around the country, including just over 15 here in Kent.

“We are rolling out breakfast clubs for all children at primary schools, and we are extending the warm homes discount so that five million families will get £150 off their energy bills this winter.

“If you combine that with the increase in the minimum wage and the Employment Rights Bill, you can see that this Government is determined to make working people better off.”

She added that although the government wanted to reduce poverty, it could not achieve everything immediately because of the state of the public finances.

She continued: “We were in opposition for 14 years before the election last year.

“Since then, we’ve introduced free school meals, rolled out breakfast clubs, increased the national living wage and national minimum wage, reduced hospital waiting lists by 250,000, and begun rebuilding our schools and hospitals.

“However, we cannot do everything straight away. We have inherited public finances that are in a mess and public services that are on their knees.

“But we are steadily improving the living standards of working people, seeing four cuts in interest rates since the general election, taking money off of people's mortgages and rents.

“All this adds up to a Government that is determined to improve living standards for ordinary working people and improve the public services they rely on, particularly our health service.”

It comes as part of a package of schemes which will also see 750 universal free breakfast clubs and expanding government-funded childcare to 30 hours for working parents from September.

The combination of these two measures, the government believes, will save families just under £8,000 per child each year.

The visit came on the day after 108 Labour MPs signed an amendment which would allow them to reject changes to welfare and personal independence (PIP) payments - enough MPs to defeat the government in combination with opposition parties.

Of the three Medway MPs, only Rochester and Strood MP Lauren Edwards signed the amendment which would prevent the Welfare Bill from having its first reading and be a major blow to the government.

In relation to the free school meal expansion, she said: “It’s hugely welcome to have the Chancellor highlighting our excellent free school meals policy in the constituency, which will benefit many local residents.”

Head teacher Rupinder Bansil said the visit was significant and expressed the importance of free school meals.

She said: “We have taken this school on a remarkable journey of improvement, from being judged Requires Improvement by Ofsted to becoming a Good school.

“This transformation occurred despite many of the children’s challenging life circumstances, with more than half here receiving the Pupil Premium.

“We know that children will always achieve more when they can do so on a full stomach and we’re delighted that more are going to be able to do so as a result of this new spending commitment.”