Frank Field – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Frank Field on 2015-11-20.

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department is undertaking of the effect on children’s (a) attainment, (b) health and (c) attendance of the universal infant free school meals policy.

Mr Sam Gyimah

The decision to introduce universal infant free school meals (UIFSM) was based on pilots of universal free school meals carried out between 2009 and 2011 in Newham and Durham. The pilots demonstrated benefits in terms of children’s health, attainment and behaviour, as well as helping families with the cost of living.

The UIFSM policy has been in place for just over a year. We will look carefully at a range of indicators in relation to UIFSM once we are satisfied that we have sufficient time series data to undertake a robust analysis.