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The intervention follows a decision made by Cumbria Council in December to provide an extra £1.5m to local schools to help them to provide nutritious food to pupils. The letter calls for:

• Increase in funding for free schools meals that is in line with inflation
• Ensure funding matches changes in the number of eligible pupils for free schools meals in year (currently funding is based on the number of eligible pupils at one point in the year)
• Extend eligibility for free school meals to all children under 16 living in a household with an income of less than £20,000

Councillor Young said: “Urgent action is needed on free school meals; Government is simply not doing enough, and it is the most vulnerable pupils who are losing out. Ensuring funding rises with inflation is an obvious first step, and making funding respond to changing numbers of eligible pupils could easily be done. The £1.5 million we allocated late last year was an attempt to plug the gap left by Government, but we know it’s a sticking plaster. 

“Our call to extend free school eligibility also makes sense, given the overwhelming evidence of the importance of nutritious food in schools on pupil health and how they do in school. The Secretary of State has the power to make all of these things happen. I hope she will see the sense in what we are proposing and take action.”