Thank you very much, Presiding Officer, and I thank colleagues for their contributions to the debate this afternoon. Can I say that I am very proud of how the Welsh Government and local authorities have reacted to the unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring that those who rely on free school meals have not had to go without whilst they are not in school?

We have now made available up to £60.5 million in additional funding this financial year for free school meals, and building on this we will provide and additional £23.3 million to extend free school meals in school holidays for the entirety of 2021-22. Free school meal provision remains a key priority, and our aim is to make sure that this support continues to be made available to families who need it the most.

In 2019 we estimated that if no earning threshold was put in place by the time that universal credit was fully rolled out, around half of Wales's pupils would be eligible for free school meals in Wales, compared to 16 per cent in 2017. With no additional funding made available to Welsh Government, this would have necessitated some very difficult funding choices elsewhere within the education portfolio and the wider Government, and we are yet to hear what people think should be cut to afford such a change.

During the pandemic, there has been a significant increase in families taking up free school meal entitlement because of the economic crisis that COVID has also brought, and the number of pupils who are now in receipt of provision has increased in just a matter of months from around 91,000 to now over 105,000. Members will recall that, in December, we calculated that to provide free school meals to every child whose parents receive universal credit would cost an additional £67 million a year. Further work has been done to update these figures, with the latest calculations now indicating that the additional cost would be between £85 million and £100 million, even before taking account of the impact of the pandemic.

But I think it's also important for colleagues in the Chamber not to forget that increasing the eligibility of free school meals also has a knock-on to other policy areas. For example, a rough estimate of extending free school meals to all pupils in families claiming universal credit would result in an additional pupil development grant cost of between £220 million and £250 million. Of course, it may be the intention of Plaid Cymru to do away with the PDG or to cut the worth for each individual pupil of PDG, but the fact remains that a rough estimate is that this policy could cost an additional £350 million a year.

In a similar debate in December, Plaid said that this would just be the first step towards their policy of offering universal school meals, and my question today is the question it was then: where do you expect this money to be found? Because I have to say, it simply doesn't wash that this money is found from the additional funding this year's budget contains. What about future years? The money that was referred to is one-off funding. We would still need to find hundreds of millions of pounds for future years. To be clear, that means cuts in other areas. I of course recognise the importance of free school meals in supporting children and families. If I didn't, we wouldn't have taken the steps that the Welsh Government already has. The changes needed when we introduced the threshold were incredibly complex, but we are absolutely committed to undertake a rapid review of the threshold when new data becomes available.

With regard to other parts of today's motion, calling for the criteria to include families with no recourse to public funds, I agree that this is really very important. Whilst recognising that not all people with no recourse to public funds are on low incomes, I do recognise that, for many, many of those families with no recourse, without a doubt, they are in need of support. I can therefore confirm that we will consider making formal amendments to this complex piece of legislation once the impact of COVID-19 has eased. In the meantime, we continue to strongly encourage all local authorities to exercise their discretion to allow the children of these families to benefit from free-school-meal provision. I appreciate that local authorities are always worried about their own individual budgets, but let me be absolutely clear to all local authorities this afternoon: they are able to claim from the Welsh Government in respect of additional costs if they take this step forward to support these families.

Llywydd, to finish, this is about choices, and where we should target our resources is always a question that we as a Government are constantly challenging and asking ourselves. Only today I am pleased to announce additional funding to extend our PDG access scheme to be now worth over £10 million. This is funding that will support our most disadvantaged learners and help more families meet the costs of school uniform, school equipment and now electronic devices. I can assure Members that, within the limited budget provided to us by the UK Government, we here in this Government will continue to ensure that resources are spent in the best possible and the most targeted way. Thank you.