Legal bid for free school meals over holidays fails
A LEGAL claim to get free school holiday food provision for less well off children in Wales re-instated has ended without success.
Extending free school meals support into school holidays was introduced during the pandemic and ran until May last year when the Welsh Government said it could no longer afford it.
The Welsh Government received a judicial review claim from the Public Law Project in respect of the provision of free school meals over the school holidays in September last year.
This has now been settled by agreement between the parties with a consent order, Education Minister Jeremy Miles said.
“As the claim related to a procedural issue, the current position has not changed: the provision of free school meals during the holidays ceased in 2023, as funding unfortunately remains unavailable within the current budgetary constraints,” the minister said.
Meanwhile universal free school meals for all primary children continues to be rolled out across Wales.
The introduction of universal free school meals for primary school pupils is part of the Co-operation Agreement between the Welsh Government and Plaid Cymru.
All primary school children and more than 6,000 nursery-age pupils attending a maintained school will be eligible for free school meals by September this year 2024.
Some councils have used money from their own budgets to continue providing holiday food for less well of children.
Education Minister Jeremy Miles said in a written statement: “In reaching a settlement, the Welsh ministers accepted that in June 2023, further equality assessment work needed to be completed.
“These procedural issues were addressed by taking a further decision in October 2023 after consideration of a comprehensive impact assessment.
“Again given the ongoing financial pressures on the Welsh Government’s budget, the decision was taken not to reintroduce the provision for October 2023 half term and subsequent holidays, and to cease the provision indefinitely.”
Mr Miles said the decision not to extend funding into the 2023 summer holidays was not taken lightly. He blamed cuts in funding to Wales from the Westminster government.
“As the subsequent comprehensive impact assessment demonstrated, and given that our budget is worth £1.2bn less in real terms than when it was set by UK Government in 2021, it would have been unaffordable without having to make significant cuts in other key education budgets.”