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

The next item is the Plaid Cymru debate: free school meals, and I call on Sioned Williams to move the motion. 

Motion NDM7767 Siân Gwenllian

To propose that the Senedd:

1. Notes the recent publication of several reports by the Bevan Foundation and the Wales Anti-Poverty Coalition on expanding the provision of free school meals and on the extent of poverty in Wales.

2. Notes the recent publication of a letter by the Wales Anti-Poverty Coalition signed by ten anti-poverty organisations calling on the new Welsh Government to make expanding free school meals a priority. 

3. Calls on the Welsh Government to:

a) amend the eligibility criteria for free school meals so that all school pupils in families receiving universal credit or equivalent benefit are eligible;

b) permanently extend free school meal entitlements to pupils in families with no recourse to public funds;

c) publish a timeline for the phased implementation of universal free school meals to guarantee all school pupils a nutritious, locally sourced school lunch.

Motion moved.

Thank you, Llywydd. The unprecedented impact of COVID has held a mirror up to our society. What we see in the reflection is not only the impact of the last difficult months on everyone, but also the difference in the impact on different parts of our society—the difference that arises from economic inequality. And the picture that we see is not a new one, either. It is tragically familiar, shamefully familiar.

We've heard so much from politicians of all parties about the desire to create a new normal, about the unique opportunity afforded by the pandemic to see the cracks in the system, to see the holes in the net that's supposed to keep the most vulnerable from falling by the wayside. This renewed focus on the problems that have caused critical situations for too many Welsh families should lead to systems being repaired, practice being improved, funding gaps being closed to ensure an inclusive recovery that values ​​all lives equally in every community in Wales. It's an opportunity that we must seize.

Recent research has highlighted why we need to act now. The Institute for Fiscal Studies, the IFS, estimates that 27 per cent of the population of Wales will be living in relative poverty, and that 39 per cent of children will be living in poverty by the end of the year. Report after report has highlighted how poverty restricts the life chances of children, how it can harm them physically and mentally, and can create a chain that is difficult to break for generations in respect of health problems, lack of economic and educational opportunities, and personal and social difficulties.

Having been forced through the lens of COVID to witness how deprivation is literally a question of life and death, these statistics are more than just embarrassing. They are sickening. The number of children across the UK living in poverty has increased over the last 10 years. The cruel austerity policies of successive Tory Governments in Westminster are partly responsible for that. But we also need to look more closely at the picture here in Wales. This is where a Labour Government has been, and continues to be, in power.

Salary levels are an important factor in the picture. Research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in April last year found that wages in Wales are lower than almost all other parts of the United Kingdom, contributing to the relatively high levels of in-work poverty, and so many key and front line workers are earning less than the real riving wage. And now, with the pandemic having ripped through our communities, it is our most impoverished people that have suffered most. Research by this Senedd has revealed that people from low-income households have been the most likely to lose their jobs and to lose their income.

Recently, the Bevan Foundation noted that a quarter of Welsh households have seen their incomes fall during the pandemic, while at the same time, living costs have risen in more than four in 10 households. As a result, the number of people claiming benefits that support those on low incomes has increased significantly. In April, over 125,000 more people in Wales were claiming universal credit than at the start of the pandemic. More and more of our people are falling into poverty, and the fact that the Westminster Government wants to withdraw the £20-a-week increase in universal credit is likely to see even more households experiencing desperate financial hardship. And this is not an exaggeration. It is a desperate situation when people are struggling to pay for everyday essentials. This is the situation for 110,000 households—roughly the same as the number of households in Swansea. Again, it is the households with children that have been hit hardest.

So, how have people been coping with the increasing gap between lower incomes and higher living costs? People are going without food, and many of the most impoverished households expect to have to make further cuts in the future. They will go without heat, without clothes, without light or electricity.

So, what do those who analyse this shocking research and statistics say should be done? What can the Welsh Government do to change this? There is one measure, one specific step that is affordable and simple to achieve, that repeatedly comes to the top of the list of possible measures: extending eligibility and ensuring access to free school meals for all children in poverty.

Over 70,000 children currently living below the poverty line in Wales are not eligible for free school meals. They are missing out on something that would make a fundamental and striking difference to their lives and would relieve the economic pressure on their families. Eradicating child poverty was a target of the Welsh Government—a target that was dropped. Isn't this the most important target that any Government could have?

The Government has also ignored its own child poverty review, which found that extending eligibility for free school meals to a wider range of children and young people was the one thing that would help the most.

Therefore, the evidence in support of this measure is robust. But the record is disgraceful. Wales provides fewer free cooked meals to its schoolchildren at present than any other nation in the United Kingdom.

It's also disappointing that the Welsh Government has refused to extend free school meals permanently to children in families who have no recourse to public funds due to their immigration status. These are some of the most vulnerable families in our nation. This would be a powerful anti-racist statement, and it would increase the pressure on the Tory Government in Westminster to abolish this unjust policy. Support for the measure is widespread.

There's a growing and vocal movement in favour of expanding free school meals in Wales. I met with representatives of the anti-poverty coalition last week. The frustration at the growing levels of child poverty and the determination to see this stain on our society addressed made a very deep impression on me. This broad-ranging and passionate support for expanded free school meals provision comes from an array of organisations in Wales and beyond. There is also support within groups affiliated with your own Labour movement. Constituency Labour parties, Labour groups and trade union branches are passing motions and making calls. Again the question: what is stopping Welsh Government from responding to this ever growing chorus of disapproval and following the evidence?

When we have brought this case to the Government, as we have done on many occasions, we have been told that the barrier is cost. But that cost is a relatively modest one, certainly when the outcome is such an important one. The Wales anti-poverty coalition estimates it would cost an additional £10.5 million annually. That's a mere 0.06 per cent of the total revenue budget of the Government. Even if every child received a free school meal, the cost would be £140.7 million. That's still less than 1 per cent of the Welsh Government’s total revenue budget. In addition to the increased revenue cost, expanded provision would also lead to some additional capital costs, but there are some practical workarounds that would allow this investment to be spread over time and allow eligibility to be expanded before the investment has been completed.

Another factor that seems to be preventing the Welsh Government from acting is the cost implications for other policies, which are far greater than the costs directly associated with expanding provision of free school meals. However, there are easy amendments that could be made to these policies to ensure that they still deliver the support they were designed for, even if they are decoupled from free school meals. The use of FSM as an indicator for determining how funds are allocated to local authorities and schools is therefore not a hurdle to expanding eligibility.

Expanding eligibility to all children whose families receive universal credit is thus achievable, and it can be done reasonably swiftly. Given the enormous benefits that such a change would provide to families across Wales, and given the deepening poverty crisis, this is the time to act. Do we really mean it when we say we want a fairer Wales? Now is the time to ask ourselves that question. So, what's stopping the Welsh Government? Will you support the motion today and take action, and, if you don't, will you be able to look in the mirror tomorrow? Diolch.

I have selected two amendments to the motion. If amendment 1 is agreed, amendment 2 will be deselected. I call on the Minister to formally move amendment 1, tabled in the name of Lesley Griffiths.

Amendment 1—Lesley Griffiths

Delete point 3 and replace with:

Notes the Welsh Government:

a) has commenced a review of the eligibility criteria for free school meals as committed to in the Programme for Government, with the intent of extending entitlement, provisional Pupil Level Annual School Census (PLASC) data shows there are 108,203 pupils eligible for free school meals, an increase of almost 18,000 since PLASC 2020;

b) has provided an additional £60m since the start of the pandemic to provide additional Free School Meals in the 2020-21 financial year and has been recognised by the Education Policy Institute (EPI) for its support to families eligible for free school meals during the pandemic;

c) will provide an additional £23.3m to extend free school meals in school holidays for the 2021-22 financial year, providing the most generous provision in the UK; and

d) working with partners, delivers the only universal primary school free breakfast scheme in the UK.

Amendment 1 moved.

Formally.

I now call on Laura Jones to move amendment 2, tabled in the name of Darren Millar. Laura Jones.

Amendment 2—Darren Millar

In point 3, delete sub-point (c).

Amendment 2 moved.

Thank you, Llywydd. I thank Plaid Cymru for bringing this debate to the Chamber today, as it does highlight the dire need—the real need—to tackle poverty here in Wales, and the need to protect and look after children in need. It is very hard to concentrate and get a good education when your stomach is rumbling, and that's why I think there is now universal support for free school meals for our poorest pupils. But universal benefits, I would argue, Llywydd, are not the answer. Of course the state has a moral duty to protect those who fall below the poverty line, but it is not the responsibility of the state to feed everybody's children. Universal free meals would lead to a situation where relatively low-income people are paying extra in tax to fund free meals for families who can well afford to contribute to the system. The welfare system is a safety net to catch the vulnerable before they fall. Our citizens should have the dignity and freedom to choose how they spend their money and how to raise their own children. If a family can afford to feed their children, they should have the freedom to do so.

The past 16 months has seen an extraordinary rate of restrictions on the freedoms and liberties that we all take for granted; many have been for good reasons, to keep people safe, but we mustn't think that the public will tolerate this sort of nannying long term. It is not the role of Government to tell families how they should raise their children. Government needs to provide efficient and reliable public services, maximise investment to create jobs, and that's how you lift families out of poverty, not through nannying bureaucratic interventions. The Conservative amendment removes the reference to universal free school meals, but I do not want to detract from the rest of the motion by extending free school meals to those households that are on universal credit—16,400 more households will be eligible, meaning that those children could be better equipped to learn. But we should be cautious of gold-plating benefits like universal credit like this too often, as it creates a cliff edge and this creates the risk that they end up better off by living on the safety net rather than having the dignity and reward that a job and a monthly pay check will provide.

While on the subject of free school meals, I would urge the Welsh Government to improve the way that they process school admissions data so that schools are funded based on the number of free school meals pupils that they have, not on the number that they had two years ago. Welsh Government has a ridiculously bureaucratic funding system, which is denying pupils the targeted support and intervention that they need. It's the twenty-first century, Llywydd; such a system should have left our classrooms along with the BBC BASIC computer.

And, Llywydd, I cannot let this debate go past without mentioning, alongside free school meals, the academic benefits of sport and physical activity, which are also proven to improve academic attainment and improve concentration in the classroom. Even taking part in programmes like the daily mile, as was talked about earlier, can have a big impact, which I know from my son's own primary school. So, if we are serious about the benefits that we've heard in the Chamber today, the Welsh Government should be ring-fencing time and providing proper financial support to enable our schools to encourage sport and active lifestyles in our young people alongside free school meals. And I was pleased that the Minister actually said something on it earlier in this regard, but I would urge speed, Minister, as post pandemic, the benefits that physical activity can bring are even more than we've outlined today.

But the best thing we can do for children eligible for free school meals is to tackle poverty by attracting more investment that creates decent, well-paid jobs—opportunities for families to get on in life. An evidence review on child poverty conducted by the UK Government highlighted that one of the most important factors that contributes to child poverty is long-term worklessness and low earnings within the child's household. Thirty-eight per cent of children who experience persistent poverty live in workless households, and that's why, Llywydd, while this debate is well-intentioned, free school meals is a policy to treat the symptom. We need bold intervention to address the deep-rooted causes of poverty, so young people can do well in school and go on to secure well-paid jobs. In 22 years of Labour rule we have seen the Welsh economy stagnate, and, despite well-meaning reports and short-term policies, there has been no improvement in social mobility. Now is the time, Minister, to act and build that dynamic economy that will help poorer families get on in life. 

It is heartbreaking to have this debate today, and it's not just Welsh Government who have a lot to answer for, but the UK Government has a lot to answer for as well. The thought of children going hungry in Wales and families struggling to put food on the table is a failure. It's a failure of Government and it's a failure of societal and economic systems. Many years ago, I was one of those kids. I was on free school meals for some time. My experiences have led me to the conclusion that free school meals ultimately should be universal. Aside from the clear effect that free school meals has on poverty and economic inequality, as well as the well-being of pupils, it also has a clear effect on educational attainment. After all, how can a learner concentrate at school if they are hungry?

Universal entitlement improves attainment by more amongst pupils from less affluent families than amongst pupils from more affluent families. In Wales, half as many pupils eligible for free school meals achieved the level 2 key stage 4 educational attainment threshold as children who are not eligible, and they are far more likely to be excluded from school. In the short term, children from households that lack food security are more likely to suffer educational losses, hampering their progress and development. This inevitably places pressure and additional stress on children that live in poverty. Children that go hungry are far more likely to suffer from anxiety and severe stress, and there are proven links between hunger in early life and depression and suicidal episodes, as well as the likelihood of developing chronic illnesses such as asthma. Crucially, for proper brain growth in children, they must be provided with specific nutritional requirements. Ensuring our children receive these nutrients through universal access to nutritious meals will therefore also ensure the well-being of future generations, preventing serious illnesses and chronic conditions as well as ensuring healthy brain development. The evidence is clear: children not eating a healthy diet are more likely to suffer problems as they age. They'll be more likely to suffer from diseases such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease and obesity.

The COVID-19 pandemic has of course left many families struggling to feed their children, and the dramatic shifts in education have left many school-age children behind, hamstringing working-class children who are already playing catch-up with well-off peers. At the very least, children in poverty have suffered a double blow to their well-being, and the provision of school meals would allow them to recover and thrive. If we want children and young people to thrive in education and to grow up to be healthy adults, they need nutrition. It's simple. The cost implications of poverty and hunger, the impact on health, physically and mentally, as well as on educational attainment, of not feeding children will be far greater than the cost of providing free school meals. By providing nutritious meals to all children, especially all those in poverty, and by procuring those meals locally, we can boost the economy and ensure our children and young people can thrive and grow, no matter their background. I would hope that a Welsh Labour Government would agree with this. It's no good standing up and saying that we provide the best free school meals provision in the UK. Quite simply, the best is not good enough. We've heard it time and time again in the Chamber over the years—the language of priorities is the religion of socialism. For me and many others, that still means something. 

I'll be voting against the Plaid motion today because I am opposed to universal free school meals. I do not believe that providing free school meals to children who are being privately educated is the right thing to do or the right use of resources—if you look at your motion there, it says 'all'; it doesn't say 'all in the public sector', it says 'all' and 'all' includes those in private education—not now, and not in the future. But if Plaid Cymru returned with a motion that said 'amend the eligibility criteria for free school meals so that all school pupils in families receiving universal credit or equivalent benefit are eligible, and permanently extend free school meals entitlement to pupils in families with no recourse to public funds', I will vote for it. 

Sometimes, a debate can be simplified into right and wrong. It is right to extend free school meals to children on universal credit and those with no recourse to public funds. It is wrong not to do so. The Labour Party was created to stand up for the poor and exploited in society. Children will go hungry. In working-class communities such as mine, the meal at around midday is called 'dinner'—to many children, the main meal of the day. Too many children go to bed hungry at night. One good meal a day makes a huge difference to a child. Also, being hungry affects educational attainment.

The right to food is protected in the UK by the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights. The convention on the rights of the child also reiterate the UK's responsibility to ensure all children have an adequate standard of living, including the right to food. While the UK has ratified both conventions, it has not enshrined them in domestic law, unfortunately. This means they cannot be legally enforced in the UK courts. Nevertheless, hunger in childhood is a human rights violation that our Government has an obligation to address using the maximum resources it has available. The right to food is also about ensuring that all people are able to access food in a dignified way.

I'm sure the Government will mention cost and the difficulty affording it. I've listened intently for over a year now when we've been told that we have the most generous financial support amongst all the British nations for businesses during the pandemic. We have provided business rate relief to smaller food retailers. We have engaged in finding money to support demand-side housing that's inflating housing prices. We have provided substantial support for economic schemes that could never work. It's not that we've invested in them and they were a possibility, and we were a bit unlucky. I won't name them now but I can name some that could never work; they were just not possible to work. 

So, I remain completely unconvinced that this is not affordable. In fact, we've just talked about £75 million for active travel. Now, this is where you come down to priorities. Would you prefer to see that money spent on active travel or on feeding schoolchildren? I'm on feeding schoolchildren, and I think that that is when you come down to what are your priorities. So, I'm really unconvinced that this is not affordable.

One of the main reasons that so many in our society live in hardship and that so many cannot afford food is because we live in a system embedded in structural inequality. And let's be fair, the Welsh Government have been very critical of universal credit cuts, very rightly so, and they've blamed the Conservatives fairly regularly, if not very regularly, for cutting universal credit by £20, and that is wrong. But it's equally as wrong not to feed children who are on universal credit, even more so now when universal credit has been cut by £20. And we've got a punitive benefits system, sanctions on those reliant on benefits, and a five-week wait for universal credit. That's why many children and families have no recourse to public money; they're waiting that five weeks to get their universal credit. They have no money coming in from anywhere. How they're meant to survive, I'm not quite sure. 

The minimum wage was supposed to provide enough for a family to live off. Unfortunately, it's not the real living wage, and I've bored you in here more than once talking about how important the real living wage is, so I won't do that now. Did you in Plaid Cymru add that third item about providing free school meals that includes children in private schools in order to stop any Labour Members voting for it? If you did, you've probably been very successful if that was the aim. But providing free school meals for pupils whose parents are on universal credit and who have no recourse to public funds is one of the things the Labour Party was created to do. If we cannot do that, why do we exist? 

In a post-COVID-19 world, providing free school meals should be more of a priority than ever before, because it helps our society to build back better. Effective school food programmes can help our children not only during the first 1,000 days of their lives, but also the next 7,000 days on their journey toward adulthood. And we've heard this fact previously from Luke Fletcher, but I will repeat something similar: research by the GENIUS School Food Network undertaken in 2020 shows that the quality of diet during childhood has an impact on the development of young people. It impacts on their educational attainment and their health and well-being for the future, and also influences their diet and the risk of chronic diseases such as diabetes and cancer later in life. We therefore must have effective and sustainable ways of helping young people, particularly in socioeconomic deprived areas, in accessing a better diet. 

But in addition to this, Llywydd, there are social, economic and environmental benefits, too. Professor Roberta Sonnino of Cardiff University noted that public procurement is one of the most powerful tools available to governments in the development of sustainable food economies. The procurement of food is a huge percentage of our GDP—some 13 to 14 per cent, usually, in European nations. So, it's a golden opportunity for us to decide what kind of food markets we want to create, for whom, and how. Ensuring that the Government, local authorities, and other organisations purchased food that is grown locally for free school meals would strengthen the local economy, too. Supporting the local food economy could also bring economic and environmental benefits. The benefits include using farmland to grow vegetables, training the next generation of farmers to be growers as well as food producers, and particularly producers of quality meat. We can create high-quality jobs by producing, processing and selling food locally. This would boost local economies and would ensure that every pound stays local.

Listen to this data: the public sector contributes significantly to expenditure on food and drink in Wales—£78 million per annum, according to the auditor general. Imagine the difference that £78 million could make to our communities if the whole procurement budget were spent in Wales on Welsh produce. Recent research by the New Economics Foundation demonstrates that investing £1 in local procurement projects gives you an added value of £3 in social, economic and environmental benefits.

Plaid Cymru believes that all public procurement of food should prioritise the purchase of food produced in Wales. The provision of free school meals for primary children, with an emphasis on developing local supply chains, will support local farmers and growers, and local businesses. With a threat to the farming sector created by trade deals with countries like Australia, and the increased cost of imports, this is a golden opportunity for the public sector and farmers and growers to work together to produce high-quality, fresh and seasonal food and to help create a more sustainable food system in Wales based on shorter and more resilient supply chains. From dairy to red meat processing, we have an extractive economy, where Welsh products are taken over the border to England to be processed. Currently, any Wales food policy needs to recognise that many of its conventional supply chains are increasingly tied to UK processing and retailing hubs. Recent statistics suggest that Wales only has the capacity to process 49 per cent of its own milk, 28 per cent of Welsh beef, and 24 per cent of lamb and sheep. All of this represents lost value and lost income to the Welsh economy and the wider food industry, and this has to change.

I will conclude with this, Llywydd: expanding free school meals also gives us an opportunity to secure healthier foods for our children and to increase horticulture here in Wales. To conclude, therefore, free school meals for primary children would not only lead to better healthy eating patterns, reduce obesity, improve the ability to concentrate in the classroom and reduce the stigma attached to poverty, but it also has social, economic and environmental benefits too. So, for all sorts of very good reasons, Llywydd, I urge everyone to support this motion. Thank you.

I agree with a great deal of what Cefin Campbell has said, because he's said many of the things I've been going on about in the last Senedd, so I look forward to working with him on that. But I don't think that this debate is about that today; I think it's about the money at the moment. We simply haven't got the local food sources that we need. We heard in the business statement yesterday about the crisis of food security that we are currently experiencing, so we need to be very careful about what we are going to promise to our children and our families that we are not able to deliver.

I listened with great interest to Laura Jones say, 'If families can afford to feed their children, they should have the freedom to do so as they wish.' I think not. We can't actually stand by if a family is not feeding their child a nutritious diet willingly and knowingly and with the ability to do something about it. That is simply not possible. And the consequences, as we have seen, of poor diet are what is clogging up our hospitals, because of the long-term consequences of poor diet. And as Luke Fletcher, indeed, pointed out, it has very serious short-term and long-term consequences for the ability of the child to learn as well as the obesity epidemic and diabetes and all the other things that go with that. I agree that the midday meal that Mike Hedges talked about really should be the main meal of the day for a child. It is really not great for them to be having that meal in the evening; they need to be having it in the middle of the day when they're running around, using up and needing to burn up a lot of their calories.

But politics is the art of the possible and, at the moment, there is a £50 million difference in the cost calculations of the Bevan Foundation and the calculations of the Welsh Government on what it would cost to introduce free school meals for all children on universal credit. I'm well aware that the accounting errors may occur, but £50 million is not far short of the fine of £70 million imposed on Southern Water for its criminal discharge of raw sewage into the rivers and seas of Kent and Sussex. It would be great, wouldn't it, if the malpractice of irresponsible companies that poison children could be used to feed hungry children in our schools, but that is not the way things work. If Plaid is really serious about the issue and is a responsible party, you have to make clear what you're going to cut to find the money for funding universal free school meals, and I need to know what the answer is to that in your summing up. I appreciate that Plaid is a recent convert to the important issue of free school meals, but to continue to demand that we throw money at the problem without displaying much acknowledgement of the complexity of this issue is not good enough. It is not a simple good-versus-bad answer. We know from amendment 1 that the Welsh Government is exploring all the options, starting with tying down the cost implications, and that is just a start.

I need to know how many pupils are currently receiving a nutritious school lunch at all. In my constituency, it's not that many, simply because it is very difficult to deliver lunch in the dining room of a school without completely busting the bubble arrangements. We know, instead, that most families are being asked to send pupils to school with a packed lunch—how nutritious are those packed lunches? I appreciate that it's difficult to visit schools but I bet that many of them consist of a packet of crisps and a chocolate bar because I've seen it on countless occasions. 

The 33,000 rise in the take-up of free school meals during the pandemic is to be welcomed. We need to know a great deal more, however, about whether this has been inspired by the injection of cash into family bank accounts, which, of course, is the most dignified way of supporting poor families, rather than grab bags being provided and which continue to be provided by some local authorities. In the past, how much effort have local schools put into ensuring that families were signing up to the service that their children were entitled to? How much is that due to stigma and how much is it children actually refusing to eat the school lunches that are being served because they prefer to sit in the lunch break with their friends who are having packed lunches or they want to go and play games? I have experience, definitely, that people on free school meals are simply eating chips because that's all they will eat—not a good use of public funds.

What about these free school breakfasts? We hope that the change in the regulations on bubbling will, indeed, allow them to be reinstated in September, but this is not a service for hungry children as much as a service for working parents. We know that from the school census data back in January 2020—a million miles ago. We can all deplore the proposed £20 cut in universal credit, but if we peg our free school meal eligibility to the actions of the UK Government who we have no control over, what could that be setting us up for in terms of control of our own budget? If they knew that all our children were getting a free school meal, would Rishi Sunak then reduce the amount of money that was coming to families on universal credit? This is a hugely complicated issue, and we have to work really hard, collectively, to get this one right. 

What does a society owe its children? That surely is one of the great dividing lines in politics. I believe that society and Government hold a shared responsibility over the lives and well-being of children, while to others, such a notion will be an affront. Indeed, some politicians, wealthy politicians, who've had all the luck in the world, seem to think that children should be punished for their parents' poverty, that the really nice things are too good for them, and that while some children can grow up in homes with food aplenty and golden wallpaper, the rest can make do with gristle or crumbs from the rich man's table.

If there's one lasting image from the free school meals debacle in England last year, it's those photographs, shared on social media, of the inadequate meal parcels: the halved vegetables wrapped in cling film, because those children apparently didn't merit full vegetables, which makes you ponder the effort it would have taken to cut and separate out those bits of vegetables, the time invested in taking away and denying those children the whole portion. The casual cruelty of that banal act and lack of care or concern. Pasta and tuna taken out of tins and bagged up in those measly bags to make sure the rest of the family couldn't possibly benefit from those meals. It was as if the whole exercise was meant to strip away every vestige of dignity from the recipients. Those photographs shamed our hearts because they betrayed something deep set in our society, that we are brought up collectively to accept poverty, so long as it happens over there. And that if people are poor, they somehow deserve it. And it took a footballer, Marcus Rashford, a man who is an English hero, Llywydd, to shame the Tory Government into changing their policy. 

Now, I don't deny for a moment that the situation is better in Wales, but it is still not enough, and I would be failing in my job if I didn't point that out. Llywydd, I've raised questions recently about the mental health impact of childhood hunger, the hidden harm created in a child's psyche, the associations of guilt and shame that get built around food because of poverty, because chronic hunger isn't just about empty bellies; it's about malnourished self-esteem, underfed aspirations and starved potential. It's about not being able to afford the slice of pizza that your friends have, being embarrassed about your lunch, going to queue on the other side of the hall away from your classmates with the other free school meal children, maybe missing out on lunch altogether because you don't want to face the jibes. As the children's food inquiry makes clear, hunger is a social harm. It causes distress, isolation; it can trigger depression, hopelessness and stress for both parents and children. It affects school attendance and attainment.

The free school meal allowance in Wales isn't enough. The children's commissioner's charter for change looked at this, and her office found that children getting £2.05 a day didn't have enough money for a break-time snack as well as a lunch-time meal. The slice of pizza I mentioned, in one school that costs £1.95, leaving only 10p for a snack at break time or a drink. It wasn't enough for either. Another child said, and I quote, 'All I could afford was one sandwich or a fruit and drink, never a meal.' A third child told them they just had to starve until lunch time while everyone else could buy what they wanted. Just had to starve.

Food should neither be seen as a lifeline nor a luxury. It should be the baseline, the fundamental, the shared and the communal. Until we introduce universal free school meals, that stigma will continue. You'll have the two dinner queues in the canteen. You'll have the haves and the have nots. We'll have some children who will grow up associating food with embarrassment and shame, and we'll have a society that still thinks it's acceptable to send children bags of broken up vegetables in the place where compassion should be.

The Minister for education, Jeremy Miles.

Thank you, Llywydd. Free school meals continue to be an important element of our efforts to eradicate poverty. We have clearly seen their importance over the challenging past 15 months. Unfortunately, the number of learners in receipt of free school meals has increased throughout the pandemic. And the interim data from the pupil level annual school census for 2021 demonstrates that 108,203 pupils are eligible at the moment. This is an increase of almost 18,000 pupils in one year. We cannot ignore the reality of that.

Our programme for government includes a commitment to respond to the increased demand for free school meals as a result of the pandemic, and to review the criteria for qualification, extending as much as possible. I have brought this work forward based on interim data, rather than confirmed data, so we have already started this work, putting the structure and remit of the review in place. There will be work across Government to see what the implications are in terms of policy and cost for other initiatives and grants that use information about eligibility for free school meals.

We're also looking at research and evidence and the work commissioned by the Bevan Foundation and the Wales Anti-poverty Coalition. The Bevan Foundation have estimated themselves the cost of extending provision, which at the moment is quite a way off our own estimates, but I've given clear direction to my officials that they must work closely with Policy in Practice, which did the analysis work, in order to get a better understanding of their methodology and valuation as part of our review. I'm expecting the review to be completed in the autumn, and I will provide an update to Members at the beginning of the new Senedd term in September.

It is unacceptable, Llywydd, that many families with no recourse to public funds also are living in extreme poverty. Changing the eligibility criteria for free school meals in these circumstances would require primary legislation to be amended. However, I strongly encourage local authorities to exercise their discretion to allow the children of these families to benefit from free school meal provision, and to claim the costs of doing so from the Welsh Government.

It is also unacceptable to me that a child or young person should miss out on extra-curricular activities and experiences because of their personal circumstances. Our pupil development grant access scheme provides funding directly to families who need it most, to help with some of the costs of the school day—a commitment in both our programme for government and 'Renew and reform'. Therefore, I'm pleased to announce that the pupil development grant access scheme will continue for this financial year. I have increased funding for PDG access to £10.45 million. This will allow us to extend the grant for additional years, namely years 1, 5, 8, 9 and 11, at a rate of £125 per learner.

These actions build on those that we have already taken, and I want to acknowledge the work of our delivery partners in supporting the key actions we've been able to take during this time. Last year, we made available £60 million in additional funding for free school meals, based on the most generous weekly allowance in the UK. Our local authorities responded with speed and dedication, ensuring learners who most relied on free school meals did not go without whilst not in school. We were the first in the UK to guarantee ongoing funding for free school meals throughout the summer holidays, in response to the pandemic, and the first to announce provision would continue until Easter 2021. Building on that, I can confirm an additional £23.3 million to ensure free school meal provision will be available during all school holidays in the 2021-22 financial year. We've allocated £477,000 for the provision of free meals for students in further education over the summer.

Llywydd, I understand the intentions behind the motion's call to extend free school meal eligibility, but the context in which we are seeking to do so is that of the limited budget provided to Wales by the United Kingdom Government. If eligibility for free school meals were extended to all pupils and families in receipt of universal credit, we estimate currently that approximately half of the pupils in maintained schools in Wales would be eligible.

It became clear during the last election that Plaid Cymru, who bring the motion today, had not fully thought through what their policy would mean for the pupil development grant. We regard that as vital funding for our schools, to help support our most disadvantaged pupils. There is a link between free school meal eligibility and the pupil development grant. We estimate that this link would potentially represent additional PDG costs of around £168 million a year. I do think it's important, as Jenny Rathbone was saying, that in the interests of a fully informed debate, that when parties advocate particular expenditure, they also indicate how it will be met and where other budgets would be cut and to say so. But I understand from Sioned Williams today that the answer to that in part is that Plaid Cymru no longer advocate that pupil development grant funding should follow free school meal eligibility.

I would like to thank Plaid Cymru, having said that, for the opportunity to address this important matter today. Our review as a Government of free school meal eligibility criteria to ensure that those who need it most receive the support that they need is already under way and I look forward to updating the Senedd in the next term and engaging with those in this Chamber and beyond who share that objective. Diolch, Llywydd.

I call on Siân Gwenllian to reply to the debate.

Thank you very much. I'd like to thank everyone for their contributions this afternoon. Plaid Cymru speakers have made very forceful arguments, setting the context and outlining the calls that are getting more and more support as we discuss this issue and I don't apologise for bringing the issue back so soon in this Senedd. We discussed this in the last Senedd as well and it does need to be on the agenda. We certainly won't drop this issue. Cefin mentioned the advantages of our policy in terms of strengthening the local food economy, and that is a core part of what we propose.

The Tories missed the point completely. There is robust evidence to show that offering free school meals to everyone is advantageous for a number of reasons and that the cohort that would benefit most are the most deprived children, and Luke Fletcher explained that and spoke from personal experience. Could I explain to Mike Hedges that it's a policy for state schools? That's what Plaid Cymru's policy is. And it wouldn't include or be extended to the private sector. So, I hope that with that explanation, although it doesn't explain that literally in the wording of the motion, but with me saying this now as an explanation, I hope that you can support our motion, or I'm not sure whether Mike is arguing against the principle of universalism, which is a principle that has been accepted by the Labour Party.

In Finland, Sweden and Estonia, free school meals are available to all school pupils, not just the most impoverished, and we know how successful the education systems of those countries are. In Scotland and England, every child of school age, in the first three years of their education, receive free school meals, regardless of household income. In Northern Ireland, the threshold for the earnings of those who receive universal credit has been set at a very high level, helping to support more working families. And there is a risk that Wales will fall further behind. The Scottish Government now intends to introduce free school meals for all primary school children by August next year. So, the opposition of the Welsh Government to extending free school meals to all families on universal credit is becoming more and more difficult to justify.

There are financial complexities, yes, but if giving free school meals to some of the most impoverished children in our country is a priority, and it is, from what I've heard, something that is important to the education Minister, then we have to find a way around that financial complexity, and we have to set it as a budget priority. And that's the purpose of budgets. The purpose of a budget is to set expenditure in accordance with priorities and I look forward to seeing the fruits of the labour of the fiscal research that is being undertaken.

I'm pleased that you're going to be working with the Bevan Foundation to understand how they have been working and on the analysis that they've laid out. They estimate that the cost of extending free school means to every school pupil in families on universal credit would cost £10.5 million. That is less than 0.06 per cent of the total revenue budget of the Welsh Government, but, of course, it would make a genuine difference to the lives of the poorest families in Wales, and would save £1,300 per year for them on average.

In terms of the motion before us, we are disappointed to see the Government proposing an amendment that means more lack of action. A review wouldn't give us the assurance that we're looking for, and if the motion is amended in that way, then we won't be able to support that, and we will abstain on our vote. Who can be against supporting a measure that would help to tackle poverty, would reduce inequality, would reduce the pressure on living costs of families, would help attainment and the learning experience, would help the health of children and would reduce the stigma and the mental anguish that stems from poverty? Support the motion, and for goodness' sake, Welsh Government, make this a priority.

The proposal is to agree the motion without amendment. Does any Member object? [Objection.] There are objections, and I will therefore defer voting until voting time.

Voting deferred until voting time.

That brings us to voting time, and so we will take a short break to prepare for those votes.

Plenary was suspended at 18:32.

The Senedd reconvened at 18:41, with the Llywydd in the Chair.