Will the Minister confirm when the decision was made to withdraw free school meals during the summer holidays, and how that decision was communicated publically?
Extending free school meals into the holidays was a time-limited crisis intervention in response to the pandemic. Following a number of extensions, we confirmed in March 2023 that free school meal holiday provision would continue to be made available to eligible children until the end of the May half term holiday. This was subsequently communicated to local authorities on 9 March 2023. We issued a further letter to local authorities on 28 June confirming that this remains the case and that there will be no further extension to cover the summer holiday period or beyond.