There was an almighty political row last week over Labour’s announcement that it was extending the eligibility for pupils to receive free school meals.

The Conservatives claimed that, in making this announcement, the government was trying to sneak in a £1.5 billion stealth cut to pupil premium funding for schools from 2026.

But education secretary Bridget Phillipson responded by accusing her shadow counterpart Laura Trott of “barefaced lies”.

Tes looks at what is behind the row and what is actually happening to free school meals (FSM) and pupil premium.

The expansion of free school meals

Last week, in a move that the education secretary said was a “giant step” towards ending child poverty, the government announced a major expansion of FSM eligibility from September 2026, extending the policy to all children whose households receive universal credit.

Currently, children whose households receive universal credit but have an income of more than £7,400 (after tax and deductions) are not eligible for FSM.

But the Department for Education also announced that existing transitional protections - established in 2018 to ensure that pupils who gained FSM eligibility would not lose it while universal credit was adopted - are set to end in September next year, to coincide with the introduction of the expanded eligibility criteria.

Additionally, the DfE also confirmed that the link between FSM status and pupil premium funding for schools has been frozen at the current £7,400 universal credit and income eligibility level.

In effect, this will create what has been criticised as a “two-tier” system for pupil premium funding. New recipients of FSM under the expanded criteria from 2026 whose families earn above the old £7,400 cap will not attract pupil premium funding for their school.

The Conservatives leapt on the latter part of Labour’s announcement, claiming that it had a “sting in the tail” and that the changes would result in a £1.5 billion cut to pupil premium funding due to the ending of the transitional protections. This was vehemently denied by the secretary of state and the DfE.

So, should schools expect a £1.5 billion cut to pupil premium?

What is happening with the pupil premium?

The short answer is no, but this is a complicated policy area.

The Conservatives’ estimate of a £1.5 billion cut is based on there being roughly 1.2 million pupils currently in receipt of FSM through transitional protections, with a weighted average of per-pupil funding of £1,280 (the maximum available per pupil is £1,480 in primary and £1,050 in secondary schools).

These protections are ending in September 2026 when the expanded FSM universal credit eligibility is adopted.

The Conservatives have acknowledged that the number of transitionally protected pupils losing FSM “will be offset” by the eligibility changes - i.e., many who previously received FSM because of the transitional protections will now be covered by the extended criteria.

However, the Tories said that the government’s decision to institute a hard £7,400 cap for pupil premium funding will cut those formerly covered by transitional FSM protections off from receiving pupil premium funding under the new rules, even if they are still receiving FSM through the extended criteria.

For the £1.5 billion funding cut to become a reality in 2026, it appears that all 1.2 million transitionally protected pupils would have to lose the pupil premium funding that they currently attract.

But experts say this could only be the case if the “Ever6” or “FSM6” category - a protection that means anyone in receipt of FSM at any time in the past six years attracts pupil premium funding for the next six years regardless of whether they lose FSM status - was to be scrapped.

And the DfE has said that the “Ever6” or “FSM6” protections will remain after 2026 and “no one” will lose pupil premium eligibility in 2026-27.

As FSM campaigner Andy Jolley explained: “It’s hard to see how [the Conservatives] are suggesting a £1.5 billion cut… it’s likely a significant proportion of newly eligible pupils will have received FSM at some point before and will be included in the transitional protections group who lose FSM but still maintain Ever6 [pupil premium funding].”

The DfE has confirmed that it is reviewing pupil premium allocation and related funding to “ensure it is targeted to those who need it most - while maintaining the overall amount we spend on these funding streams”. The policy is set to cost more than £3 billion next academic year.

Mr Jolley told Tes that he thinks the “DfE will expect to make significant savings in the medium and long term, as fewer and fewer children receive pupil premium. Unless the £7,400 threshold increases, new FSM claims attracting [pupil premium] will become a rarity.”

Will 100,000 be lifted out of poverty?

Another figure that has been contested is Labour’s claim that its expansion of FSM will lift 100,000 children out of poverty.

Christine Farquharson, associate director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said that in the longer term this 100,000 figure was accurate, but that for 2026-27 we will “not see anything like 100,000 children lifted out of poverty” - a quote which has been seized upon by the Conservatives.

Indeed, the government’s calculations show that this impact will not be felt until 2030 - something its original announcement did not make clear.

The modelling for the figure of 100,000 being lifted out of poverty by 2030 also has two quite large caveats.

Firstly, the model assumes 100 per cent take-up of FSM by those eligible. The DfE acknowledges that this uptake figure is currently only 89 per cent.

Secondly, the analysis does not account for transitional protections, which means that “some of the children gaining from the measure [expanded FSM eligibility] are in practice already currently receiving FSM”. However, the DfE said that the impact of this is expected to be “minimal” come 2030 due to the end of protections in 2026.

The DfE has said that it stands by the 100,000 figure after it was questioned by the Conservatives.

Carl Cullinane, director of research and policy at the Sutton Trust, said the charity’s own estimate last year was, in fact, higher than 100,000, and that any effort to accurately forecast how many families would be lifted out of poverty would be difficult due to the level of assumption required.

Are 500,000 more children going to receive FSM?

Another question surrounding the announcement is whether the more than half a million young people that it is claimed the FSM eligibility expansion will benefit includes those that are set to lose their FSM status under the transitional protections but who would then regain it.

A DfE spokesperson said that the 500,000 additional children on FSM is “net of the ending of transitional protections”.

However, when Tes posed the question about how many pupils losing transitional protections were included in the 500,000 gaining FSM under the expanded criteria, the DfE only said that it had not published data on this.

According to Mr Jolley, this is a “fundamental problem” because “no one has any real numbers”.

He added that his understanding is that the DfE doesn’t know which pupils are receiving FSM due to transitional protections and who qualifies under “real” FSM criteria.

It is therefore difficult to provide accurate figures on the exact net benefit of the eligibility expansion announced by the government, a point made by Dr Tammy Campbell, director for early years, inequalities and wellbeing at the Education Policy Institute.

“It is possible that the extension of eligibility will largely serve to balance out the cessation of transitional protections, rather than making significant numbers of children newly eligible,” said Dr Campbell.

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