York council: No more free school meal trials until January 2025

Before the May 2023 local elections, York Labour pledged to fundraise enough money to provide free school meals for all primary school children.

In January 2024, a one-year trial for midday meals at Westfield Primary School started, followed by a trial for free breakfasts at Burton Green Primary School.

But there are 57 primary schools under the City of York Council and the policy is expected to cost around £3m.

The council's education executive, Coun Bob Webb, confirmed the next starting point for new schools to benefit from the scheme would be January 2025.

When asked if Labour is losing confidence in the pledge following a service-cutting, money-saving budget announcement, the finance executive Coun Katie Lomas said: “I wouldn’t say that we have lost any confidence in that.”

She added: “We’re getting more and more interest from people wanting to make long-term and significant donations to the fund.”

The pot being used to fundraise money for the policy is called the ‘Hungry Minds Fund’ and is managed by Two Ridings Community Foundation rather than the council.

Regarding fulfilling the pledge, Coun Lomas said: “We are confident that we will be in a position to roll this out but I cannot tell you exactly when.”

Liberal Democrat and Conservative opposition councillors have repeatedly questioned how achievable the policy is.

Coun Nigel Ayre, group leader of the Liberal Democrats, agrees with the principle of free school meals but has argued that it is only achievable with national, guaranteed funding.

In January, Coun Ayre joined the council leader Coun Claire Douglas in asking their party leaders, and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, to commit to national funding in their manifestos ahead of the next general election.

But Coun Chris Steward, the Conservative group leader, said: “Although we absolutely support free school meals for currently entitled children for reasons like low parental income, we do not believe it is sensible to commit to free school meals for all children."

The Liberal Democrats’ national policy includes extending free school meals to every child in primary school and to secondary school pupils whose families receive Universal Credit.

Coun Steward said: “People would have thought that their brief glimpse of power when they had to do huge u-turns including most notably of tuition fees would have taught them more of a lesson on this than it has.”

Coun Webb said: “We are working with the Universities of York and Leeds to evaluate the pilot to help us make good decisions about what works best for schools and next steps.”

He added: “More information about further fundraising activities will be released in due course.

“The early indications from schools are that this is supporting improvements to attendance and young people getting access to healthy food as well as with family finances.”