Credit where credit is due. The Liberal Democrats have secured a significant policy change that represents a step towards a political aim that is very important to me. Yesterday, it was announced that every school pupil in Years R-2 (ages 5 to 7 inclusive) will be entitled to entitled to free school meals as of next September. The plan, which will cost £700 million a year (less than 1% of the Eduction budget) and will save families over £400 a year per child, is widely considered to have been accepted by the Tories in exchange for their Married Couples Allowance, a discount in Income Tax which penalises singles, young people and unmarried partners.
The policy has been welcomed by the teaching profession and trade unions, both of which cite studies showing improved wellbeing of and attainment by pupils in areas where universal free school meals were trialled. Pupils in infant school (the Years Reception, 1 and 2 which the change affects) are on average two months more academically developed than the national average. Furthermore, inequality of attainment was reduced, but still not to acceptable levels.
Unsurprisingly, right wingers are bitterly opposed to universal free school meals on fairly predictable grounds. What I wasn’t expecting is disapproval from elements of the left- and I mean the actual centre-left, not the likes of Liam Byrne and the Progress tendency- who have attacked it as a subsidy for the middle class. I’d have thought that anything that would end the enduring stigma around Free School Meals for the poor, reduce education inequality and raise standards for all would be welcomed by any socialist. Some still need to realize that the Welfare State, the hallmark of a civilised society, is not politically sustainable if based primarily on means testing rather than a combination of universality and contributions where appropriate.
In any case, I do have an important criticism of Nick Clegg’s key Conference gift. As with the plastic bag charge and the school uniform supplier advice (notice the emphasis on schoolchildren and their parents’ wallets?), it doesn’t go far enough. As usual, the Coalition is prioritising the very young whist leaving them high and dry when they get older. Setting aside the contradiction of investing more in primary education whilst messing up the HE and employment systems they need it for, there’s the simple issue that pupils will still be charged for their meals over the 10 remaining years of their compulsory education.
I realize that 11 year-olds or- whisper it- teenagers aren’t as photogenic or voter friendly as Reception pupils, but they are just as much in need of nutritious meals at school as anyone else. I’m completely at a loss as to why universality is applied to such an arbitrarily defined age group. A cynic might say that the policy is designed to maximise popularity and minimumise cost… I’d like to think better of our political leaders.
