Scotland’s education secretary has said that the failure to roll out free school meals to all primary pupils as planned is the source of “deep regret”, as it transpired that 65,000 children in P6 and P7 would miss out under current plans.
However, today, Jenny Gilruth insisted that the government’s plan to expand free meals to families in receipt of the Scottish Child Payment was a step towards the universal free meals in primary promised in the SNP’s 2021 manifesto.
All children in P1-5 are now offered free school lunches in state schools, but full rollout to P6-7 has not taken place; the education secretary told MSPs today that this is “unaffordable”.
Instead, it plans to provide free meals to families with children in P6 and P7 who receive the Scottish Child Payment.
Ms Gilruth also said today that it had the potential to benefit “up to 25,000 children”. However, if full rollout had taken place, 90,000 children in P6 and P7 would have benefited - meaning 65,000 are set to miss out.
‘Legal gateway’ to free school meals
The figures were revealed at the Scottish Parliament’s Education, Children and Young People Committee this morning, where the government got the go-ahead to provide a “legal gateway” so that information held by Social Security Scotland can be shared with councils to help them track down parents in receipt of the Scottish Child Payment and offer them free school meals.
Ms Gilruth said this was an essential step in supporting local authorities to maximise uptake - not just in P6 and P7 but also in S1-3 in the eight local authorities where the government is trialling the expansion of free meal entitlement.
City of Edinburgh Council, she said, had written to over 7,000 families who may be entitled to free meals but just 401 had applied.
However, the committee’s backing for the enhanced data sharing was only won after an at times tense exchange between Ms Gilruth and the committee’s convener, former Conservative leader Douglas Ross, whom she accused of interrupting and talking over her on a number of occasions.
Mr Ross - who said he had received free school meals for a period after his father lost his job - suggested that the government’s less ambitious expansion of free meals was being used as “a get-out clause” to ignore the will of Parliament, which had voted in September 2024 for full rollout of free meals in primary schools.
Then, when it transpired that the last official costing of £256 million by the Scottish Futures Trust (SFT) to deliver free meals in P6 and P7 was carried out 18 months ago, Mr Ross also accused the government of using “out of date” figures.
‘Deep regret’ over lack of universal free meals
Ms Gilruth said she had engaged with SFT after the free meals vote. However, she said no further modelling work had been carried out because of the assumption that, due to “inflationary pressure”, the figure could have only increased.
She also said that further modelling work had not been carried out because “it won’t be possible to deliver that during the course of this parliamentary session”.
Ms Gilruth said: “It is with deep regret from my own personal perspective as Cabinet secretary that we have not been able to deliver on universality. It remains an aspiration and a commitment of this government.”
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