May school lunch cut ‘would hit 900,000 children of struggling families’

Pic:Theresa May has opted to end free school meals for infants
Staff reporter(wp):

About 900,000 children from struggling families will lose their right to free school lunches under a cut unveiled in the Conservative manifesto.

The total includes more than 600,000 young children recently defined as coming from “ordinary working families”, according to analysis for the Observer by the Education Policy Institute.

It means that the surprise measure risks undermining Theresa May’s pledge to prioritise families that are “just about managing” – those who are in work, but struggling to make ends meet.

May opted to end universal free school lunches for infants, introduced under the coalition government, and replace them with free breakfasts. The money saved will be used to see off a looming Tory rebellion over school funding.

The move risks punishing exactly the kind of families the prime minister has promised to help and will cost families about £440 for every child hit by the cut. It is likely to save about £650m a year. However, the Conservatives pointed to recent evidence that free breakfasts were more cost-effective, adding that the poorest children would still receive a free lunch.

After a week in which the parties released their election manifestos, more Tory candidates expressed private reservations about their party’s plan to make people pay for their old-age home care through their estates.

With the large Tory poll lead closing slightly in recent days, some nervous candidates are urging the leadership to make another attempt to explain the policy to voters, while others are planning to lobby for concessions after the election. May has insisted it is a fair measure that ensures only those with estates worth more than £100,000 will pay.

Jeremy Corbyn attempted to exploit the row by accusing the Tories of provoking a “war between generations”. He accused May of drawing up an “anti-pensioner package” that weakened protections for the state pension, removed the winter fuel allowance from many and forced thousands to pay huge amounts for home care. Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, said May’s social care policy would “go down as her poll tax”.

The decision to axe universal free school lunches for infants comes only three years after they were introduced by Nick Clegg, the former deputy PM.

The Education Policy Institute’s analysis found that about 100,000 children who are in relative poverty will no longer receive a free meal under May’s proposals. It found that an additional 667,000 children defined as coming from “ordinary working families” would no longer receive a free lunch.

Overall, its research concludes that about 900,000 children who are either eligible for the pupil premium supplement or classed as being in ordinary working families will lose the right to a free hot lunch.

A Conservative source questioned the figures, claiming they had been “cobbled together” by an organisation led by a former Lib Dem minister, David Laws. A Tory spokesman said: “We don’t think it is right to spend precious resources on subsidising school meals for better-off parents. So instead we will give that money to headteachers, to spend on pupils’ education instead.

“We will make sure all those who need it most still get free lunches – and will offer a free school breakfast to every child in every year of primary school. So the most disadvantaged children will now get two free school meals a day rather than one.”

Labour has pledged to extend the free school lunches policy to all primary school children. It plans to pay for the £1bn-a-year measure by applying VAT to the fees paid for private education.

Russell Hobby, general secretary of the school leaders’ union NAHT, said: “It is always disappointing when a policy is abandoned after only being given a few years to bed in. This sort of chopping and changing actually costs more money in the long run.”

However, there has also been support for free breakfasts. The respected Institute for Fiscal Studies has concluded that free breakfasts improved the performance of young children and were likely to be “more cost-effective”.

Geoff Barton, general secretary of Association of School and College Leaders, said evidence supported a school lunch system in which “children on free school meals have them discreetly paid for while children whose parents can pay should do so”.

The government has defined ordinary working families as those that are not eligible for the pupil premium, but still have below-average incomes. The pupil premium is aimed at a poorer group. It includes any child who has been eligible for free school meals at any point in the past six years because of their family’s low income.

Natalie Perera, executive director of the Education Policy Institute, said: “Around 900,000 children from low-income families will lose their eligibility for free school meals under these proposals. Around two-thirds of those children are from what the government considers to be ‘ordinary working families’.

“The typical annual cost for an ordinary working family would increase under these proposals to around £440 for each child aged between four and seven.”

Boris Johnson wrongly claims £350m NHS promise at manifesto launch

Political reporter(wp):

Boris Johnson has suggested Theresa May promised to give the NHS an extra £350m a week at the launch of the Conservative party manifesto, when neither she nor the document made any such promise.

The foreign secretary was pressed on why there was no pledge from the Tories to use any proceeds from Brexit to fund the NHS, when handing over £350m a week was a flagship promise of his campaign to leave the European Union.

Asked on ITV’s Peston on Sunday why the sum was not in the manifesto, Johnson said: “It is. It is. Theresa May, she said it at the launch of the manifesto … She said we are going to take back control.”

ITV News’ political editor, Robert Peston, said: “Where?”, but Johnson went straight into a speech about how the election was a contest between May and Jeremy Corbyn as leaders.

At the manifesto launch, May made a promise to “take back control of [EU] structural funds and use them to strengthen our union and reduce inequalities between our communities”.

However, there was no mention of any of this money specifically going to the NHS.

A senior Conservative source said Johnson was saying a commitment to take money back from the EU and spend it on services such as the NHS was in the manifesto but he had been cut off several times by the interviewer.

Since the referendum, she and her cabinet ministers have repeatedly been challenged about why they are not honouring the pledge that was emblazoned on a bus used to transport Johnson on the campaign trail.

The former leave strategist Dominic Cummings has suggested it was instrumental in helping the leave campaign win the contest.

Vote Leave Watch, a group pressing for the pledge to be honoured, has accused Johnson of “taking the public for fools”.

The foreign secretary was also caught sneaking a look at Peston’s questions before their Sunday morning TV encounter. Peston later tweeted a series of pictures showing Johnson rifling through his notes while he was questioning other guests.

However, there was no mention of any of this money specifically going to the NHS.

A senior Conservative source said Johnson was saying a commitment to take money back from the EU and spend it on services such as the NHS was in the manifesto but he had been cut off several times by the interviewer.

Since the referendum, she and her cabinet ministers have repeatedly been challenged about why they are not honouring the pledge that was emblazoned on a bus used to transport Johnson on the campaign trail.

The former leave strategist Dominic Cummings has suggested it was instrumental in helping the leave campaign win the contest.

Vote Leave Watch, a group pressing for the pledge to be honoured, has accused Johnson of “taking the public for fools”.

The foreign secretary was also caught sneaking a look at Peston’s questions before their Sunday morning TV encounter. Peston later tweeted a series of pictures showing Johnson rifling through his notes while he was questioning other guests.

Separately, Corbyn, the Labour leader, said that if he gained power he would put in place a migration policy based on the needs of society.

He added immigration would “probably be lower” but he did not want to make predictions. “Freedom of movement obviously ends when you leave the European Union because it’s a condition of the membership,” he told Sky News’s Sophy Ridge On Sunday.

He added: “I want there to be fair immigration based on the needs of our society. That is the proper way of approaching it.”

Pressed further on the issue, Corbyn went on: “I want us to have a society that works and I cannot get into a numbers game because I don’t think it works.”

In a trickier section of the interview, the Labour leader was repeatedly asked to condemn the IRA, following a fresh string of newspaper stories about his links to figures in the militant group in the 1980s. He said: “Bombing is wrong, of course all bombing is wrong and of course I condemn it … I think what you have to say is all bombing has to be condemned and you have to bring about a peace process.

“In the 1980s Britain was looking for a military solution in Ireland. It clearly was never going to work. Ask anyone in the British army at that time.

“Therefore you have to seek a peace process. You condemn the violence of those that laid bombs that killed large of numbers of innocent people and I do.”

Asked to condemn the IRA without equating it to the deaths caused by British security services, Corbyn said: “And there were loyalist bombs as well, which you haven’t mentioned. I condemn all the bombing by the both loyalists and the IRA.”

In another Sky interview, Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, also came under pressure in a interview over his views on abortion, which he described in an interview 10 years ago as morally wrong.

Asked five times whether he still believed it was wrong, Farron stressed he believed women should have access to abortion which is “legal and safe”.

Told by Ridge he had not been clear on the question of morality, he replied: “Well, I believe women should have access under law which is safe and legal, and I think that’s the critical issue - do you believe people should be able to make that choice under law, and do you believe the law as it stands is right and the science that dictates, or rather underlines, that law is right. I do believe that, I did then and I do now.”