The following amendments have been selected: amendment 1 in the name of Rebecca Evans, and amendment 2 in the name of Darren Millar. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendment 2 will be deselected.

Order. We recommence with item 7, which is the Plaid Cymru debate on free school meals, and I call on Helen Mary Jones to move the motion.

Siân Gwenllian, I think—

I beg your pardon. Siân Gwenllian.

—I think I'm summing up. I might not be.

Yes, it's me.

My apologies, Siân. Please move the motion.

Motion NDM7521 Siân Gwenllian

To propose that the Senedd:

Calls on the Welsh Government to immediately amend the eligibility criteria for free school meals so that any child in any family receiving universal credit or equivalent benefit and any child in a family with no recourse to public funds is eligible, as the first step towards implementing universal provision of nutritious free school meals for all school-aged children in Wales.

Motion moved.

That's fine.

Plaid Cymru firmly believes in the principle of free school meals for all school pupils in Wales, and that would be our view in Government. It would be a policy that would use local produce, would support Welsh businesses and would safeguard the environment. It's a duty on any Government to ensure that not a single child goes to school with an empty stomach, and yet, there are 70,000 living in poverty in Wales who don't currently qualify for free school meals. Clearly, we need to change that immediately. So, as a first, urgent step, we need to raise the threshold in terms of who qualifies, so that children in all homes in receipt of universal credit receive free school meals. According to estimates, increasing that threshold would cost some £60 million per annum.

If we were in Government, we would publish a clear timetable for the next steps towards providing universal free school meal provision, starting with the youngest children, and working upwards. Again, according to the estimates, introducing free school meals in the first three years of primary school would cost some £30 million per annum. So, of course there is a cost attached to extending this policy, and that's why we would move in a phased manner, but this is a policy that would deliver a number of policy objectives.

It would be a preventative model, creating financial savings ultimately, because there would be better health outcomes and education outcomes for our children. It would be a holistic policy, supporting the Welsh economy and, by reducing food miles, it would be beneficial to the environment too. This would be the well-being of future generations Act in action, improving many aspects of well-being, taking into account the long-term impact of the policy and preventing long-term problems such as poverty, health inequalities and climate change. 

Unfortunately, the Welsh Government has dropped its target to eradicate child poverty by 2020, whilst 129,000 school-age children in Wales are living below the UK poverty line, with just over half of them qualifying for free school meals. The other half are missing out, mainly because their parents are in low-paid employment that takes them over the qualifying threshold. Wales provides fewer cooked free school meals at the moment than any other nation in the UK. In Scotland and England, every child in the first three years of their education receives free school meals, whatever the family's income. In Northern Ireland, the threshold for those receiving universal credit is set far higher, namely £14,000, helping to support far more working families. 

The key benefit of providing universal free school meals is that it would eradicate the stigma that prevents many families from accessing the offer as it currently exists. Universal free school meals would remove such barriers and would reach all children, whatever that family's economic situation may be. The benefits of providing free school meals are enormous. How can a child learn on an empty stomach? How can you concentrate on your education if you're constantly hungry? Children would receive a nutritious meal every day and they would grow up as healthier young people, leading to less obesity and other health problems. Providing universal free school meals would improve the health of all children. There is research from the Nuffield Foundation that shows that, even for the children of parents who are relatively wealthy, school meals are more balanced in terms of nutrition than what's contained within their lunch boxes. And linking school meals to the local food chain would be good for the local economy and the environment, and pupils could learn about the benefits of eating good, fresh, local produce produced locally.

Now, imagine a school hall full of children socialising over a nutritious school meal—all of the children; lunch time being an integral part of their learning, the children supporting each other over lunch and learning about the value of local food and healthy food, visiting local producers and farms and making those connections between the various elements and learning all sorts of new skills together. There are many reasons, therefore, for everyone to support this motion and vote in favour of what is before us this afternoon and to adopt this very important policy. Thank you.

The Presiding Officer has selected the two amendments to the motion. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendment 2 will be deselected. I call on the Minister for Education to formally move amendment 1, tabled in the name of Rebecca Evans.

Amendment 1—Rebecca Evans

Delete all and replace with:

Welcomes that the Welsh Government:

a) provided over £50 million of additional funding to ensure the continued provision of free school meals during the pandemic and was the first government in the UK to provide provision during school holidays;

b) provided additional funding to ensure that children who are self-isolating or shielding continue to receive free school meal provision when they are not able to attend school;

c) provides funding of £19.50 per week to free school meal-eligible families, which is the most generous provision in the UK;

d) ensured that Wales remains the only country in the UK to have a universal free breakfasts in primary schools scheme;

e) has been recognised by the Education Policy Institute (EPI) for being successful in ensuring families eligible for free school meals during the pandemic had “access to timely and appropriate support”;

f) is committed to reviewing the income threshold for receiving free school meals when Pupil Level Annual School Census (PLASC) data becomes available in April 2021.

Amendment 1 moved.

I formally move. 

Thank you. And I call on Suzy Davies to move amendment 2, tabled in the name of Darren Millar. 

Amendment 2—Darren Millar

Delete all and replace with:

To propose that the Senedd:

1. Notes the existing eligibility criteria for free school meals in Wales.

2. Recognises the financial hardship faced by families across Wales as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and the challenges that this has posed for parents and guardians, and its impact on the demand for free school meals.

3. Welcomes the role that free school meals have in improving health and nutrition.

4. Calls on the Welsh Government to amend the eligibility criteria for free school meals to extend provision to:

a) learners in further education; and

b) families without an income and who are not immediately able to claim public funds.

Amendment 2 moved.

Thank you, Chair, and I move our amendment. First of all, could I just apologise to Plaid for having to resort to a 'delete all' amendment? I don't like doing it, but it was impossible to disentangle the parts of the motion with which we had some agreement from those with which we did not. What we tried to preserve is in point 4(b) of our amendment. I think there is something to be said for an entitlement to free school lunches for those children whose circumstances fall outside the current criteria because of particular crises. If you are a woman fleeing with her children from domestic violence, or if you are a parent whose own poor mental health has demonstrably prevented you engaging with a process to evict you or to claim your benefits, or if there is a delay even in receiving benefits—and I'm sure there'll be other examples—then maybe you really shouldn't also have to worry about relying on someone's discretion in order for your child to be able to eat, and if that food is procured locally and healthily, then so much the better.

We've also in our amendment sort of recognised that some families who might not have struggled in normal circumstances to pay for their children's food have found it more difficult recently, and whilst not explicit—perhaps I should have included it, actually—there's our support for the Welsh Government's extension of free school lunch provision during holiday periods while we're in the throes of this pandemic, helping to meet the needs of children newly eligible for free school lunches as well as those already entitled. I think that's been very valuable while we're all experiencing this turmoil. But that should not slip quietly into perpetuity, and this is where we do start to part company on the proposal for universal provision of free school meals.

I heard the exchange between the First Minister and Adam Price yesterday, and I heard the report given by the Child Poverty Action Group in last week's launch of the Wales civil society report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child—thank you, Helen Mary—and we would agree that children feel well and learn better if their nutrition is well cared for. And this is the primary reason for supporting measures that ensure that children from poorer families can receive free school meals—lunch and breakfast—but if you are in work, earning even a modest income, its main purpose is to help you take responsibility for looking after yourself and your family.

Where exactly to draw the line between paying or not paying for your children's school meals should always be open to review, I think. But to park the responsibility permanently with the state is a removal of a core and very visceral impulse and drive at the heart of being a parent. There should be no stigma at all in needing a free school meal for your child, but if you can pay for it, you really should, and the reason we can't support an otherwise acceptable Welsh Government amendment is the continuing commitment to the provision of universal free breakfasts. There are families where children are not entitled to free school lunches who either feed their children at home before they leave or who can pay for breakfast when their child is dropped off before school starts. Let them contribute to the cost of that if they need to do so. The 2020 census shows that 61,389 pupils and students received a free school breakfast, yet just 12,564 of them—that's about a fifth—of those were eligible for free school lunches.

It's essentially the same arguments as against free prescriptions, and it's an opportunity to draw Members' attention to the perennial unhappy fact that we are still not creating the environment in Wales that fosters growth in better paid, more sustainable jobs that offer financial security to people, especially women, despite childcare funding. The pandemic has highlighted quite how fragile our improved employment figures were, with a steeper growth in employment in these last three months than anywhere else in the UK. As the Trussell Trust themselves say, it takes more than food to end hunger. So, all of us are uneasy and worried that child poverty is proving so intractable, but Governments needs to work together on raising educational, economic and social prosperity, not act increasingly in loco parentis.

Just finally, I think it might be a surprise maybe to some Members that sixth formers can be entitled to free school meals when their peer group in further education is not, and I'm sure it's to do with funding structures, but the original motion was about entitlement replacing discretion, and it's hard to see why, then, if we cannot find equity of entitlement for 16 to 18-year-olds. As Welsh Conservatives, we see the merit in extending the entitlement to educational training until a student's eighteenth year if they're not in work—itself a step towards addressing poverty—and it follows that parity of support should underpin that. Thank you.

Free school meals aren't just about feeding hungry children—they're about access to education, children's ability to concentrate in lessons, and ensuring well-being, health and attainment. The pandemic we're all living through has forced us to confront many injustices so ingrained in our society they've come to appear endemic. A third of Welsh children are living in poverty, and as the Child Poverty Action Group has calculated, more than half of them don't qualify for free school meals because of flaws in the eligibility criteria and the callousness of means testing. That is an injustice heaped upon an injustice—children living below the poverty line who still don't qualify for support. Our motion as set out would correct this by extending the eligibility to all children from families who receive universal credit, or who have no recourse to public funds. Crucially, we would do this as a first step towards providing universal free school meals, to learn the lessons from nations like Finland and ensure that the shameful scourge of children too hungry to learn is abolished forever.

Because school meals don't begin and end with the meal. They create shared experiences, they forge bonds, stop stigma and shame. They lessen stress for children and families and advance children's emotional and physical development. Children who go hungry are more likely to suffer with chronic illnesses, anxiety and depression, and they're more likely to go on to suffer from diseases like cancer, diabetes and heart disease. That is the impact that debilitating hunger has.

Of course, free school meals have been high on the agenda across the UK recently because of the English Government's stubbornness about providing meals outside of term. In those Westminster debates, some Conservative MPs showed the ugliest side of their politics. One MP said he didn't believe in nationalising children, as though taking the basic step of ensuring no child goes hungry was the equivalent of Red Guards at the door.

Cadeirydd, it used to be possible to send children to work as chimney sweeps. It used to be possible to send children to work underground. That was only stopped through legislation starting with the mines Act in 1842, which meant only boys older than 10 could work in the mines. It seems barbaric to us now, but it was an important step. I wonder, when future generations look back at us, how barbaric it will seem to them that we allow children to attend classes with empty stomachs. That 1842 Act has meant that, since the mid nineteenth century, the state has accepted a responsibility over the welfare of children. It is a small step from that to accepting that Government has a duty to prevent child hunger. Cadeirydd, there are many areas in politics where parties will disagree—trade, taxation, targets. But there is a baseline of decency, or there should be. There should be a bar below which we should not ever sink. Ensuring every child is cradled with support and compassion and is fed should be far above that bar. Anyone who disagrees should examine their conscience.

There was an important exchange, referred to already, during yesterday's First Minister's questions, when the First Minister referred to a pamphlet from the 1940s about school meals, and it was called, 'And they shall have flowers on the table'. That evocative title strikes at the heart of this debate. School meals shouldn't be about providing the bare minimum. They should never be the source of stigma or shame. They should be the gateway to healthy lives, an eagerness to engage with school and a happiness that shouldn't be a luxury for the children whose families can afford it. Just as eligibility for free meals opens up other services like help with uniforms, music lessons and school trips, we should also see school meals as a means of helping children gain formative and valuable experiences.

Cadeirydd, the debate around free school meals has become totemic because it speaks to the values we as a society place on our children's lives. It's not simply a debate about economics. It's about the importance of joy, compassion and providing young people with hope. No injustice can ever be beyond remedy. We must forge a society where our children are fed, where they shall have flowers on the table and where they shall have reason to find joy.

I'm very pleased that this issue is being debated today. I have previously asked for a Welsh Government statement or debate on this issue, as children going hungry or relying on foodbanks is not what I and, I believe, most Members here want to see. I also submitted many written questions this year on free school meals.

For many children, the free school meal is their major meal of the day. To repeat something I have said many times in the Chamber, on school holidays, parents must provide an additional 10 meals per child a week during school holidays. If you've got four children, that's 40 meals. That is why I've continually asked for and now welcome the continued provision of free school meals during the school holidays at Christmas and Easter. Will the Government confirm that this is also to be provided at half term as well, because children will still need to be fed then? I'm also calling on the Government, when they set their 2020-21 budget, to budget for free school meals across all school holidays including all the half-term holidays.

I'm not sure that all Members understand poverty. Some of us understand it from personal experience; to us, it's a lived experience, not an abstract debating point. It is real. It affected us and people we grew up with and went to school with. So, those of us who come from a certain background know what a school dinner is. The reason we know what a school dinner is is because it is the main meal of the day and it is followed by 'tea'. It keeps many children adequately fed, that's why I'm so pleased that it'll be provided across the next holidays. When I was in school, pupils would not attend lessons, they'd go on what used to be described as 'the mitch', but they'd come into school at lunch time in order to get their free school meal so that they would be fed, because that would be the main meal that they'd have that day. If you want to know someone's background, ask them when dinner is—is it at midday or evening? People like myself would certainly say 'midday'; I think most people in this Chamber would say 'evening'.

I support the first part of the motion, which calls on the Welsh Government to immediately amend the eligibility criteria for free school meals so that any child, any family receiving universal credit or equivalent benefit, and any child in a family with no recourse to public funds is eligible. Expanding eligibility would help struggling families to cope. It would improve, as I think Delyth Jewell said, educational outcomes and help tackle in-work poverty. I think we sometimes forget that if children are poorly fed, their performance in the classroom is likely to be substantially less. If you're worried about eating, studying mathematics is probably at a much lower level of importance in your life. Over half the children of Wales who live below the UK poverty line are not entitled to free school meals. Of the 129,000 school-aged children living below the poverty line in Wales, over 70,000 are not eligible for free school meals. Many of them are my constituents. They're mainly there because their parents are in low-paid jobs that take them over the eligibility threshold. In addition, nearly 6,000 children in Wales are not normally eligible for free school meals because their families have no recourse to public funds. Many of these children live in deep, long-term poverty and are in urgent need of support. The Welsh Government needs to urgently address this for next year.

Do Plaid Cymru believe that the provision of free school meals to every child is a good use of limited resources? Is it costed? Will it appear in Plaid Cymru's proposed budget for 2020-21? What is the estimated cost of everybody? Is there a capacity issue? If the school uses the hall, as it does in many primary schools, for providing meals, and teaching such as physical education, how will it fit together? Kitchen capacity; serving capacity; organising several sittings based upon the capacity of the hall; timing of the sittings—there are schools that now have two sittings, and how would three or four be organised? On universal provision, a great headline, ill thought out. But we need to expand the provision of free school meals to all children in need. We need to commit to expanding the provision, we need to commit to continuing it through the holidays. This, as I said earlier, will improve educational attainment. Children well fed will do better because they're not worrying about eating but they're spending a lot more time thinking about what they're being taught.

How is it to be funded? I think I'm one of the few people who actually comes up with ideas about how things should be funded—not something that will go down very well with my own party, I would expect. As I keep on saying, out of the economy and transport portfolio. As I keep on saying, higher educational attainment is the best economic development tool—far better than bribing companies to bring branch factories to Wales, which they keep here for a few years and then leave. We need to ensure that our children are well fed, that every child can do the best they can, so that we have a highly skilled workforce, and that will answer, perhaps, what Suzy Davies said about low pay. We've got low pay because we've got low skill. We need to improve our skills base. One of the ways of doing that is making sure that children are fed when they are going into the classroom.

Thank you very much. I approach this debate from two perspectives—first of all, as a parent who is very aware of the importance of a healthy diet, a nutritious diet for my children, as for all children, but also from the point of view of how this policy could be used to reform procurement practices and to develop those supply chains and opportunities for the food sector and the wider economy.

Of course, the pandemic has pointed to fundamental weaknesses in the food system in this part of the world, and Plaid Cymru went into detail on that in the debate on food around a fortnight ago. But, if you add in the implications of Brexit—and it's likely that we will see economic austerity and the levels of unemployment increasing, but Brexit will also lead to challenges in terms of food supply and increases in food prices, particularly with regard to fresh food such as fruit and vegetables—there's a danger that there will be an increased dependency on foodbanks and that we'll see the food inequality that already exists in this country intensifying, with a two-tier food system becoming a more evident aspect of our society, with those who are able to afford to feed their families and those not able to do so.

Of course, the main focus of this policy is to ensure that children receive the food and nutrition that they need and improve their diet and health at the same time. We know that levels of obesity are increasing in Wales. We also know that over three quarters of adults in Wales don't eat their five a day in terms of fruit and vegetables. Frighteningly, that rises to 94 per cent of children between 11 and 18 years of age who don't eat their five a day when it comes to fruit and vegetables. More than that, less than a third of young people in Wales say that they eat a portion of vegetables once a day, and that comes from Public Health Wales.

Now, there are illnesses that emanate from poor diet, and that costs about £73 million a year to the health service in Wales on an annual basis. So, we must do more in order to get to grips with this, and ensuring that every child in Wales receives healthy food and free of charge in schools would help to prevent obesity, as I said, but would also decrease pressure on the health service.

But, as I said at the outset, there is an opportunity here to realise wider benefits as a result of a policy of this kind. We want to see ingredients for school meals being provided from local sources, which would then provide an important opportunity to support and strengthen local economies. Using more vegetables, fruit and local ingredients for school meals would help to create a new local market for our farmers, but it would be a foreseeable and guaranteed market. That would help to strengthen supply chains on a local basis. Too much wealth is being lost from our communities through procurement by suppliers from far away. I've said before that the local economy is like a bucket with a number of holes in it, with the wealth flowing out of the local community. This is an opportunity for us to plug some of those holes and to keep that money circulating within the local economy. It would also help to get to grips with climate change, as one or two have referred to already. Creating an expectation that produce, such as meat and vegetables, was to be provided locally would decrease food miles and would therefore help to lower carbon emissions.

It would also give a boost to the horticulture sector in Wales. If school meal standards were to include two portions of vegetables per meal, that could increase the productivity of the domestic horticultural sector by 44 per cent. We know that there are 13 types of vegetables grown in the UK where it would be possible to increase their production significantly. So, it's a realistic policy, and it's an achievable policy. It would create jobs and, at the same time, would decrease our dependency on imports. But only 0.1 per cent of the agricultural land of Wales is horticultural land at the moment. According to Tyfu Cymru, Wales only produces enough to provide a quarter of one portion of vegetables a day to the people of Wales, and we very much need to get to grips with that, of course. Research by the Food Policy Alliance Wales means that this way of working could create dozens of large-scale agroecology jobs in Wales, or more than 500 jobs through small-scale agroecological schemes, with an output of £400 million—sorry, £4 million, not £400 million; that would be a major game changer.

But we mustn't forget either that providing more healthy food on a local basis would provide an opportunity at the same time to strengthen awareness amongst young people and children about that important connection between their schools and their local areas, the agriculture sector, and the natural environment that supports our food system. Eating healthily, supporting the local economy, learning about networks and food processes locally, and that connection with the local environment. Who would have thought that changing policies with regard to school meals, and increasing the level of free school meals, could bring such multilayered and various benefits, central to the kind of revival that we all want to see?

This is all very much welcome food for my ears, as I've been arguing the case for universal free school meals in one way or another for quite a while. So, I really do welcome the level of agreement across the three parties on the importance of this issue. There is some disagreement at the edges, which we could hammer out in due course. But I think, picking up on some of the points that have already been made—for example, Suzy Davies questions whether parents who are not eligible for free school meals should pay for the wraparound care that they are effectively getting by enabling their children to attend the free school breakfasts. I think we need to acknowledge that many parents are using it as childcare, but, equally, the wraparound care that the free school breakfast provides does also enable them to go out to work. It can often be the game changer that enables them to take jobs and still be better off. 

So, I think there's a great deal of merit in what has been said before, but I think there's a lot of work that needs to be done to really make this happen, because we can't simply just turn on the horticultural tap overnight, and we need to gear up our public procurement services to really work out exactly how much is needed by which school, as well as ensuring that we've got properly skilled and trained-up cooks to cook the nourishing freshly prepared meals that this assumes, because there's no point in having free school meals for all primary school children, for example, if the quality of those meals is so poor that a lot of them opt out with their feet. 

As Siân Gwenllian has already said, enabling everybody to have a free school meal really does eliminate the stigma that currently stops a lot of people who are entitled to free school meals from taking it up. And others are unaware of the benefits that they would be entitled to if they could trust people enough to reveal just how little they are living on. And there is no doubt that the poverty we see all around us is going to get worse as a result of the pandemic and the disruption caused by a very abrupt leaving of the European Union.

I just want to talk about the pilots of universal free school meals that have taken place in England, because they reinforce, having done it, the benefits of this. So, Islington was the pioneer, where, by the way, I used to be a councillor many, many years ago. But that inspired the UK Labour Government to start pilots of free school meals for all primary school pupils in Newham in London, in Wolverhampton, and in Durham. And both in Newham and in Durham, the results were really significant, because the take-up of school meals rose from just under 50 per cent to now 87 per cent in one area, and 85 per cent in Durham. As you would expect, many more children were eating vegetables at lunch. It was up by a fifth. And there was a steep decline in the items associated with packed lunches, i.e. sandwiches, soft drinks and crisps. Sandwiches are a catch-all for all manner of things; they can be very nutritious, or they can be atrociously not. But soft drinks and crisps have almost no nutritional value whatsoever.

But I think, academically, what was really interesting was that students were on average two months ahead of their peers in schools who weren't in receipt of this benefit. And it had a bigger effect on literacy levels than the introduction of the compulsory literacy hour in 1998. So, it had a massive impact on children's literacy attainment, and the improvements were most marked amongst children from the less affluent families. But in addition to that, it actually saw a major improvement in academic performance across all subjects, and this is hardly surprising, because children can't be concentrating if they're hungry. And we all have stories of children who absolutely are starving when they turn up in school on Monday morning, and need to be fed, and are fed, by teachers who take them seriously.

I think the thing we really need to home in on is the cost. Because the Soil Association has calculated that, if we assumed that the cost of the meal was £1.76, for pupils aged five to 10, it would cost about £82 million for universal free school meals, whereas another calculation was that it would be over £100 million. We really do need to tie this down, but I think that, if we all have a commitment to introduce universal free school meals for all primary schools in the next Parliament, then we would ensure that it was introduced, gradually and in line with the foundational economy and the well-being of future generations Act. 

Firstly, I want to thank Plaid Cymru for bringing this debate to the Senedd today on this critically important subject. I wish to start, if I may, by thanking the leadership and the determined efforts of Welsh Government, and, in my own area, Caerphilly council, in providing an innovative local free-school-meal provision. Free school meals have never been more desperately needed by so many during the increasing desperation of this pandemic, as the punitive UK Government welfare cuts and tax credit and benefit withdrawal continues to impoverish, at this time, the very poorest in our society. So, I do pay tribute to the record of the Welsh Government and Caerphilly council today, and their amazing network of volunteers across Islwyn. When we entered lockdown, Caerphilly council swiftly and agilely pulled together local menus and local procurement, as has been stated, providing five healthy nutritious meals a week. There's a model there already.

Now, many of us will have been moved and inspired by the strong and determined campaigning of Marcus Rashford recently—whatever our football bias. As a free-school-meal pupil himself, he has been absolutely inspirational and a true role model for those in poverty today, not just as a footballer but as a social role model. England's future generations will remember him, as will we. But as the Tories in Westminster continue to oppose extending free school meals, before eventually folding—not, may I add, due to the needs of its poorest people, but to the extreme pressure of social media and celebrities on the matter—here in Wales, let's be honest, our Welsh Labour Government was already leading the way, and we can be proud so far of our record on free school meals in a devolved Wales. Indeed, in response to the Welsh Government's guaranteed free-school-meal provision for all school holidays until Easter 2021, Marcus Rashford welcomed the Welsh Government's swift response to this urgent need in protecting the most vulnerable children across the country.

But we have to be realistic. We still remain as a nation, despite recent inputs, on a 2010 income level. Cadeirydd, our free-school-meal offer here in Wales is the most generous across the UK nations, and we are the only nation to offer free breakfasts at primary. But is this enough? No, it's not—it's really not enough. We want and should and must do more. But I would, as would Welsh Government, need to see that detail, as has been said, on this proposal. Because the reality of Government, compared to making up policies that rob Peter to pay Paul, or if the Tories do, with no countenance of the miserly budget Wales is drip fed from the Treasury—the reality of Government is that this very considerable policy will have to come from somewhere, and from someone else. So, Llywydd, I do not envy those choices that this ethical, radical and ambitious Government, of which I belong and which represents the interests of the most vulnerable in our society, has to make. This is a good example—to conclude—and a good debate. So, I do welcome this opportunity. And I would say this to Plaid Cymru: show us those details, and suggest where we find the money, because we both know we will not be getting it from a cruel and impoverishing UK Tory Government. Diolch. 

Food is important in so many ways: to health and well-being, quality of life, our economy and environment, to tackling inequalities, and, yes, in our schools. So, it was good to hear the First Minister, in his questions yesterday, making clear his Government's commitment to addressing issues of school meals and quality and ensuring provision. And he was quite clear, wasn't he, that in doing that, it demonstrates societal valuing of education. It makes a very powerful statement to our young people, and I do believe Welsh Government has acted on that commitment. It's good to see practical outcomes from that—during the pandemic, for example, continuing free school meals during school closures and holidays, and the launch of a joint Welsh Government and Welsh Local Government Association campaign to address the substantial—around 25 per cent—underclaiming of free school meals. But, yes, there is a lot more to do.

Encouragingly, we have strong campaigns for progress by, amongst others, the anti-poverty coalition and the Child Poverty Action Group. The latter's research in Wales shows more than half of children in poverty ineligible for support. So, in a class of 25, seven children will be in poverty and four of those will not qualify. Almost 6,000 children have no recourse to public funds as a result of UK Government policy on immigration status, but, thankfully, Welsh Government have provided free school meal support during COVID-19.

And, yes, it is good to see those who have achieved success and fame using their profile for the greater good. Marcus Rashford is a great example. His food poverty taskforce's petition on these issues has over 1 million signatures. And we see, from the work of the University of Essex, that universal free school meals in the foundation phase led to better uptake by all children, helped families with the cost of living and helped tackle obesity, poor attendance and the attainment gap. 

COVID-19 and likely rising prices from Brexit exacerbate the issues that we face. But Welsh Government has acted to address free-school-meal issues and is committed to review income thresholds. I do believe that this should be built upon by work on further widening provision, looking at the foundation phase and all pre-16 education, making permanent current arrangements outside term time and for those with no recourse to public funds, and looking at the wider issues that people have mentioned—how quality local food can be sourced for our schoolchildren to aid healthy eating and, of course, to help the local economy and our environment.

These issues around free school meals really do touch a lot of the most important things that we can do in practical terms, as a Welsh Government, here in Wales, to create the sort of country we want to see. So, I hope we build on this debate today, which I very much welcome to make the further progress needed. 

I call the education Minister, Kirsty Williams. 

Thank you very much, acting Presiding Officer. Could I begin by thanking Plaid Cymru for the opportunity to talk about how Wales has led the UK in prioritising the welfare of families and how we have worked effectively with local government to deliver efficient and effective provision? We do indeed, as has been referenced in the debate, have the most generous Government in the UK when it comes to providing support for those who need it the most. Ensuring the continuation of free school meal provision has, and will, continue to be a key priority as we respond to the coronavirus pandemic. And it may be useful to remind everyone of what we've been able to achieve so far.

We remain the only Government in the United Kingdom to provide universal breakfast for primary school pupils and of course, we have plans to see what we can do to extend that provision for year 7 pupils. We were the first Government to confirm funding over the Easter and half-term holidays in 2020 and funding for the provision of free school meals from September 2020 through to Easter 2021, and that does indeed include half-term holidays, Mike Hedges.

We have made the most generous provision of any UK Government available of £19.50 per child, per week. And we were also the first Government to provide funding of an additional £1.28 million to meet the additional costs incurred by local government during the first two weeks of the autumn term to cover the phased return to schooling. And we were also the first Government to agree funding for children who are shielding or self-isolating so that they continue to receive support if they are unable to attend school through no fault of their own. In total, we have committed over £52 million to ensure that children eligible for free school meals do not go hungry during these unprecedented times.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank our partners in local government across Wales, to acknowledge the speed in which they responded to the original call to arms, their creative and innovative approaches, and for the hard work and dedication of their officers who have been so crucial in ensuring that families are supported. And can I also take this opportunity to thank catering staff, who've been working in really challenging conditions since schools returned for the September term? Many of you have heard me say before: my Grandma was the school cook for many years in Blaenymaes Primary School in Mike Hedges's constituency. She peeled a lot of potatoes for those kids, but I also know that she was one of the most beloved and important parts of her school community and that stands true for many of our catering staff who work in our schools today.

During the course of the pandemic, there has been an increase in the number of families applying for universal credit. And while not all new claimants will receive universal credit, there has definitely been an increase in families seeking their free school meal entitlement for their children. The UK Government's introduction of universal credit meant that we had to change the eligibility criteria for free school meals in Wales and it's important to note that no additional funding was, or has been, provided to the Welsh Government to manage the impact of this change, which, frankly, is a disgrace. But nonetheless, we provided additional funding of £5 million to local authorities in 2018-19 and £7 million through the local government settlement in 2019-20 and for 2021. 

We've also introduced transitional protection to ensure that any change to the eligibility criteria would cause the minimum disruption possible. This means that pupils eligible for free school meals will be protected against losing them until the roll-out is complete, even if their eligibility does change. We estimate that the total number of children receiving transitional protection in any given year, during the universal credit roll-out period, will run into the tens of thousands, which the Welsh Government is committed to supporting. I have made a commitment to keep the threshold constant until the end of the universal credit roll-out period because I want to ensure that those who are in most need of support are benefiting. But I have also given a commitment to undertake a review of the threshold when the next set of pupil level annual school census data becomes available to me. 

Like many people in the Chamber, who have expressed a view this afternoon, I remain concerned about the plight of children in families with no recourse to public funds who are living in poverty. However, local authorities have used, and will continue to use, their discretion to support families without an income and who are not immediately able to claim public funds. I want to continue to encourage local authorities to use that discretion and we will consider making formal amendments to complex legislation once the impact of COVID-19 has ceased and there are additional resources available to legal services.

I've listened very carefully to what has been said here today, and I know just how important free school meals are to the families who rely upon them. But there is a balance to be struck in ensuring that those most in need are provided with a means of accessing free school meals, while, at the same time, ensuring that our proposals are affordable. We do not, unfortunately, have an unlimited budget. We also need to be clear on the costs of proposals to expand eligibility. We estimate that to provide free school meals to every child whose parents receive universal credit would cost an additional £67 million a year. If we were providing free school meals to just primary school children, it would cost around £92 million a year. And if we provided free school meals to every learner of compulsory school age, it would cost around £169 million. So, if Plaid are serious about their proposals—and I have no reason to believe that they are not; and, indeed, the vision is a commendable one—they need to be absolutely clear what public services will be cut to provide that funding. And they need to be open with the public where they will begin to make that £160 million saving.

As a Government, we have a responsibility to use public money effectively by ensuring that free school meals get to those most in need, and at the present time, with the limited budget provided to us by the UK Government, I believe that the current targeted approach is the most effective use of public resources. However, that does not stop the Welsh Government from being creative and innovative, and I believe that we should acknowledge how effective our approach during COVID has been—and there are lessons for the longer term to have been learnt—whilst giving a commitment to work with our stakeholders to continue to look for opportunities, as I said, to help those most in need. But I want to thank everybody for their contributions this afternoon. Diolch yn fawr. 

I have no Member wishing to make an intervention, so I call on Helen Mary Jones to reply to the debate.

I'm grateful to the acting Presiding Officer for calling me, and I'm very grateful to all who have taken part in the debate. I won't repeat the points that have been made very ably by my colleagues; I think the case has been powerfully put. I will try to respond to some of the points made by other Members.

I was surprised to see Suzy Davies's 'delete all'. I know she doesn't usually do that, and I'm grateful to her for her explanation. And I think her point about further education is a very important one, and that needs to be taken forward. So, I'm grateful to her for that point that she's raised. But, in the end, when it comes to the provision of universal benefits, there is just a simple philosophical difference here, a political difference here, as Delyth has pointed out. We believe, in Plaid Cymru, that children are not just the responsibility of their parents, they're the responsibility of the whole community. And we have heard from others about the way in which a continued fear of stigma does prevent even many of those who are currently eligible from taking that benefit up. Universal benefits avoid those stigma issues. So, it is a simple difference of view. I respect the way that Suzy Davies has put it across, but I disagree.

Mike Hedges's contribution was very interesting. His record on this is, of course, well known. He's right to remind us of the realities of poverty, of what it is really like to have to worry about whether you can afford to feed your children or turn the hot water on so you can wash their clothes. I'm glad he supports us on the expansion of eligibility—this is of primary importance. Our figures, the figures from the Child Poverty Action Group, suggest the cost would be £60 million; the Minister says £67 million. That is of course a lot of money, but not a huge thing. I rather liked Mike's point about, 'Perhaps we should take that out of the economic development budget'. If I'm Plaid's economy Minister in a new Government after the election, I'll be very happy to make my contribution towards that, because Mike is absolutely right, we have to deal with skills and underperformance in education. In terms of making it a universal eligibility, he's right to point out that there are practical issues, and that's why we would be taking a phased approach.

And to all Members who have asked about how we'd do it, well, we will of course set that out in the preparation of our manifesto. And I will say to Rhianon Passmore: I'm not going to show you the working out, because we on the Plaid Cymru benches are rather tired of having our good policy proposals nicked by the Labour Party. So, Rhianon will have to wait to see the manifesto before she understands exactly how we will make that work.

Other Members on the Labour benches have made some powerful points. I would say to John Griffiths, of course it is a good thing that there is discretion for free school meals to be provided for those not eligible for receipt of public funds, but I don't think it's right that that's discretionary, that should be an entitlement for those children—the poorest children. Why do we leave that to anybody's discretion? I don't understand it, and I think, in truth, he probably doesn't himself.

Jenny Rathbone's points were well made, as I said, about stigma, and the pilots do provide really interesting evidence, and that evidence about academic attainment—two months ahead of their peers because they are being fed, with no stigma, and that marked impact on less-affluent children. It's been interesting, of course, to hear Labour Members make a powerful case for doing something that they won't be able to vote for today, but I think that is still—all those contributions are—part of a really important debate. 

Now, I have to say to the Welsh Government that this is another disappointing 'delete all'—not surprising, but disappointing. This is not the most generous food offer for schoolchildren in the UK. Don't take my word for it: Suzy Davies was in the event that I chaired last week looking at what the third sector organisations in Wales will say to the United Nations about whether we're meeting our convention requirements, and both the Bevan Foundation and the Child Poverty Action Group were absolutely clear that the Welsh Government offer is the least generous. Because it is generous to those who receive, but what about those who do not? And that's the point—the first part of our motion today.

Of course, the things that they're already doing are welcome. The free breakfasts are a good thing for those who are able to access them. I worry sometimes about families not being able to get their children to school in time always for free breakfasts. But that doesn't solve the problem. It doesn't deal with the fact that we have all these children living in poverty in Wales who don't claim when they are entitled because they're worried about stigma, or those who cannot, who are not entitled. And I would say to the Minister: your backbenchers know this; there's not a single one of them who said that they didn't think that universal free school meals were the right thing to do. Quite right to raise the practical issues of how you introduce that, but they know your offer isn't the most generous in their heart of hearts. The figures the Minister provided are useful and, as I've said, this would obviously be a policy that would need to be phased in.

I want to end, acting Presiding Officer, by saying this, simply and clearly, to the Welsh Government: if this Conservative United Kingdom Government, which is in charge of benefits, not notoriously generous in the way that it allows its entitlements, if this Conservative Government recognises these families as families in need of help, how can it possibly be right that this Welsh Labour Government, which calls itself a socialist Government, will not do that same?

The First Minister, responding to questions from Adam Price yesterday and Delyth Jewell, referred to the very beautiful and moving pamphlet 'They shall have flowers on the table' from the 1940s. Well, I would say to the Welsh Government today, acting Presiding Officer, that there are many families living in profound poverty in Wales who would be glad to have food on their children's table at school; flowers would be nice, but food is what they really need. These are families living in poverty. They are families that the UK Government acknowledges need support to look after their children and I am—am I disappointed? Yes, I am disappointed that this Welsh Labour so-called socialist Government does not appear to agree.

The proposal to agree the motion without amendment, does any Member object? [Objection.] I defer voting under this item until voting time.

Voting deferred until voting time.