Nearly 300,000 disadvantaged young children set to miss out on free meals
“There are often times when I spend half the month living off my credit card,” admitted Kirsty, a single mother of three. “Money runs out quickly.”
She claims Universal Credit and the youngest of her children attend pre-school three days a week, so she needs packed lunches. “I usually spend over £10 every few days adding bread, cheese, butter, crisps, yoghurt, fruit to the lunch box items… This adds up to an outrageous amount very quickly.”
This is likely to continue for hundreds of thousands of disadvantaged young children despite government plans to expand free school meals next year, according to a new report.
Experts from food policy research group Bremner & Co found that around 290,000 children under five will not receive free meals because the expansion does not cover most nursery and childcare settings.
The report, sponsored by the Food Foundation, Impact on Urban Health and the Early Years Food Coalition, finds this will create a “stark disparity” between childcare settings and calls on the government to ensure the policy reaches all children.
While around 30 per cent of pupils in schools will receive free school meals after the expansion to all Universal Credit households from September 2026, researchers found only 4 per cent of children in formal childcare will receive the same service.
These will only be children who attend state-funded preschool full-time and are successfully enrolled for meals. Following the expansion, the number of children provided for in these settings is expected to increase from 24,000 to 39,000; This is far fewer than the number of people who will miss out on opportunities.
Charlotte March, 37, from Essex, is a single mother of a three-year-old child in a private nursery. She claims Universal Credit by working part-time, but finds herself facing a huge nursery bill at the end of the month having to pay for the meals they provide.
“I have no choice but to pay for the meals. Although it would be cheaper for me to provide these myself, the nursery does not allow this due to allergies, which I completely understand,” she explained.
Many nursery workers interviewed for the research said they were feeding eligible children out of their own budget, in one case leading to a £70,000-a-year budget shortfall. But it is unlikely that many environments will continue to do so, as the industry increasingly warns of serious funding shortfalls.
Sharon Hodgson, Labor MP and chair of the all-party parliamentary group on school meals, said: “It is shocking that in 2025 so many of our youngest children will be missing out on free meals simply because of where they are looked after.
“Ministers must consider this inequality and take action to ensure every child has access to a healthy meal, regardless of environment or paperwork.”
The researchers recommend offering free school meals to all children in households with Universal Credit, regardless of childcare setting, as well as introducing the option of automatic enrollment if eligible, to ensure no child misses out.
Labor MP Simon Opher said: “Delivering free meals to all children in households with Universal Credit and automating enrollment is a simple, fair and cost-effective step that will transform lives by lifting thousands out of poverty.”
Meanwhile, Liberal Democrat MP Jess Brown-Fuller called the findings “shocking” and called on the government to review its policy.
The research comes as child poverty continues to reach record levels in the UK. Latest statistics show that three in ten children in the country now live in poverty, with this number rising from 4.3 million to 4.5 million between 2023 and 2024.
That rate rises to 36 percent for families whose youngest children under five live in poverty, according to a Bremner & Co report.
These figures are likely to have increased since then, with experts from the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) estimating that 109 children are being pushed into poverty every day due to the impact of two child benefit caps, the last record for the year to April 2024.
This is the controversial Conservative-era policy that prevents parents from claiming Universal Credit for any child after their second birthday, and the government has so far refused to bow to pressure to cancel the credit. In recent weeks, Labor ministers, including education minister Bridget Phillipson, have said the law could be repealed by 2026.
The Food Foundation’s head of policy and advocacy, Dr. Hannah Brinsden said: “Although they have taken positive action to deliver Free School Meals to all schoolchildren whose families have Universal Credit, it is a gross oversight by the government that around 300,000 vulnerable young children still living in households with Universal Credit are being denied these benefits.
“This needs to be fixed urgently if the government is to prove it is serious about giving children the best start in life and raising the healthiest generation of children ever.”
A Department for Education spokesman said: “Through our Plan for Change, this government has taken a historic step to tackle the stigma of child poverty by offering free school meals to every child in a household claiming Universal Credit.
“The new entitlement will enable more than half a million more children to benefit from free meals from next school year and lift 100,000 children out of poverty.
“As part of the expansion, we announced that children in school-based nurseries whose families receive Universal Credit will be eligible for free meals from September 2026.”
