SNP considers free meals for all primary pupils

Published on Saturday 14 November 2009 19:08

FREE school meals for all primary pupils could be introduced in Scotland as part of plans to tackle obesity levels in children.

The Scottish Government is already planning to extend free meals provision to primary one, two and three children from next August despite complaints from cash-strapped councils about costs.

But an expert panel commissioned by the SNP administration is now recommending that the policy is further extended to the last four years of junior school.

Ministers introduced the existing policy in an attempt to ensure that young school children are eating some healthy meals.

The 30 million flagship plan has already run into severe difficulties, however, with councils claiming that they cannot afford to implement the policy while they struggle to make ends meet in the economic crisis.

Despite the protests, however, rolling out the scheme to all primary pupils – around 200,000 – has been recommended in a Scottish Government document, National Food and Drink Policy – Walking the Talk – Getting Government Right.

The document, compiled by civil servants, health experts and food experts, calls on the government to "review the success of the current policy for free school meals in primary years one to three and consider extending this to all primary years".

It states that extending free school meals would be a good way of changing current eating habits. The move was backed by SNP activists at their recent conference in Inverness.

Under the system currently in place, free meals are restricted to pupils in primary one to three whose parents receive both the maximum child tax credit and maximum working tax credit – around 44,000 children.

The government has calculated that a further 118,000 children will benefit from August next year assuming councils manage to implement the free meal policy in primaries one, two and three.

Extending the policy to all primary pupils would benefit around another 200,000 pupils and is likely to cost 50m.

Free school meals is a key plank of the historic concordat agreed by the government and councils, which also committed local authorities to freezing council tax and reducing class sizes in primaries one to three to 18. The recession has led to the concordat unravelling, as councils look to cut spending during the recession.

The document acknowledges that the move would "require additional funding". But the suggestion that free school meals should be extended was greeted with astonishment by council leaders and opposition politicians.

Ronnie Nicholson, the Labour leader of Dumfries and Galloway Council, said: "This is absolutely crazy. The councils simply do not have the budgets to do that. We are really struggling locally with implementing the free school meals policy for primaries one to three."

Ken Macintosh, Labour's schools spokesman, described the suggestion as a "ludicrous idea" that would cost tens of millions.

Liz Smith, the Tory education spokeswoman, said: "This money would be much better off being spent on other things and extending the policy to primaries four to seven is not the right thing to do. It is pie in the sky."

A spokesman for the education secretary, Fiona Hyslop, said: "Collaboration between the Scottish Government and councils has ensured that from August next year, all pupils in primaries one to three will receive free school lunches, which will encourage healthy eating habits from a young age.

"But there are no plans to widen provision of free school meals to pupils in primaries four to seven."