Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:53 pm on 18 September 2018.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Leanne Wood Leanne Wood Plaid Cymru 1:53, 18 September 2018

I'm asking you about food in children's mouths, not about school buildings. Now, the take-up of free breakfasts remains low, and experts from the Bevan Foundation and the Children's Society and the Food Foundation have all highlighted the need for universal free school meals. Free school breakfasts do not preclude the Welsh Government from offering free school meals. Now, First Minister, the Children, Young People and Education Committee confirmed that you have taken £15 million from educational investment. You're snatching money away from children's futures, and soon you will be snatching away their school dinners as well.

Of course, the chaos of universal credit and the effect of austerity is going to make life harder for families right across Wales. Fifty-five thousand children living in poverty will not be eligible for free school meals under your proposals. That's more stigma, more hunger, more food banks. If enacted, the Labour/Liberal Democrats will have imposed the most regressive free school meals policy in the whole of the UK, and that is a point that has been made by the Bevan Foundation, which, along with the Children's Society, is calling for you all to think again.

First Minister, do you agree with the experts that free school meals deliver better health, welfare and educational outcomes? Or do you believe that this investment in our children isn't worth it?