​School leaders urge all political parties to commit to extend free school meals to all pupils in households in receipt of Universal Credit​

School leaders’ union NAHT has urged for the political party that wins the July General Election to extend free school meals to all pupils in households in receipt of Universal Credit.

This comes as the government releases statistics on schools, pupils and characteristics – including age, gender, free school meals (FSM) eligibility, English as an additional language (EAL), ethnicity, school characteristics and class sizes.

The data shows that 24.6% of pupils are eligible for free school meals, up from 23.8% in 2022. This represents 2.1 million pupils.

1.6 million infant pupils were recorded as taking a free school meal on census day. Of those, almost 1.3 million received them under the Universal Infant FSM policy. This is a similar pattern to previous years.

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the NAHT, said: “Hunger makes it harder for children to concentrate on schoolwork, and also harms their health and wellbeing, and we urge the next government to extend free school meals to all pupils in households in receipt of Universal Credit.

“We also want children who are eligible for free school meals to be automatically registered as this unlocks the crucial pupil premium funding which schools receive to support the most disadvantaged pupils.”