Labour under pressure to adopt election pledge on free school meals

Receive free UK politics & policy updates

We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest UK politics & policy news every morning.

Labour leader Keir Starmer is resisting pressure from mayors, grassroots members and trade unions to introduce a policy of universal free school meals for state primary schools in England if his party wins the next general election.

Senior figures inside Britain’s main opposition party said there had been a “stormy” debate over whether to include the pledge, costing roughly £1bn a year, in Labour’s election manifesto given the leadership’s determination to maintain a lid on spending.

The row has grown increasingly heated ahead of the party’s “national policy forum” in Nottingham at the end of July, a crucial gathering for policy development.

All children in maintained schools in England can get free school meals up to the end of Year 2, after which it only applies to households on certain benefits.

Pressure from city mayors and devolved administrations has brought the issue to a head. London’s Labour mayor Sadiq Khan has provided £130mn to ensure all primary schoolchildren in the capital can receive free school meals for the next academic year. He recently urged the government to “follow London’s lead” and fund free school meals, arguing: “Families need this now more than ever.”

The Labour first minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford, has begun a phased rollout of free school meals to all primary school children in Wales by 2024.

Andy Burnham, Labour mayor of Greater Manchester, has said his authority’s budget is too small to fund free primary school lunch meals locally. But he has urged the Labour leadership to embrace the policy nationally because of its “many, many societal benefits”.

Rachel Reeves, shadow chancellor, has so far resisted demands to adopt the policy, as she seeks to maintain fiscal discipline and avoid new pledges involving the need for tax rises to pay for them.

Asked about the idea of introducing free school meals nationally, a spokesperson said: “This is not Labour policy.”

But the Communication Workers Union has support for a proposal on the issue which will be debated at the NPF. An official from the CWU said it was “extraordinary” that some children could not afford lunch in an affluent country. 

“Scotland, Wales and London have already introduced universal free school meals for primary school kids, making a huge difference to their lives,” he said. “It’s saddening that the rest of England is missing out on initiatives like this because Labour’s national leadership seems too frightened of upsetting the incredibly wealthy.”

One Labour official said that any NPF amendments would be examined, but added: “Everything Labour puts in its manifesto will be fully costed and fully funded.”

The leadership is instead expected merely to emphasise its existing position of more breakfast clubs for schoolchildren, funded by scrapping the non-dom tax regime.

Ian Byrne, MP for Liverpool West Derby, has argued that a Labour government could carry out a pilot of free school meals in one city — for example, Liverpool — at a modest cost of about £28mn over a year. “I have been pushing the argument for this for a long time,” he said. “It could make an enormous positive benefit to public health.”