Free school meals for Primary 4 children will start in the new school year but Primary 5 pupils will have to wait until January, the Scottish Government has announced.
The free lunch policy will start to be expanded from August and, by the time P5 pupils become eligible, will provide meals to approximately 90,000 children.
READ MORE: Ministers tell teachers to watch for state Covid message critics to curb pupil radicalisation
The SNP manifesto pledged free school lunches for all primary pupils if the party was re-elected to government after the Holyrood election in May.
Funding worth £28 million has been agreed for local authorities to provide the free school meals to P4 and P5 pupils during the next school year, in addition to the lunches already provided to all children in P1 to P3.
A further £21.75 million will provide targeted free school meal support during school holidays in 2021-22, starting with the upcoming summer holiday.
The government estimates this will cover approximately 145,000 primary and secondary children from low-income households, with individual councils deciding whether the provision is in the form of direct payments, vouchers or food parcels.
READ MORE: SQA and Education Scotland to be reformed
Confirming the expansion of free school lunches, Education Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville said: “Free school meals are a vital support to thousands of children and young people across the country – ensuring that children have access to a free, healthy and nutritious meal every day they are in school and are ready to engage in learning.
“The provision of £49.75 million in new funding to local authorities demonstrates our support for the health and wellbeing of children and young people and our commitment to reduce the impact of poverty on thousands of families across the country.”
Councillor Stephen McCabe, of COSLA, added: “Councils across Scotland have long been committed to delivering healthy free school meals – to eligible children and young people.
“We are pleased that, in partnership with the Scottish Government, this commitment can be further expanded upon by providing free school meals to all Primary 4s in August 2021 and Primary 5s in the latter part of the academic year.
“Local authorities will continue to work hard to ensure that children and young people have access to healthy and nourishing meals so that they are fully able to learn, play, and engage with their peers and communities.”
READ MORE: SQA crisis: Tests 'are driving pupils to self-harm and suicidal thoughts'
When he announced the policy at the SNP conference last year, Deputy First Minister and former education secretary John Swinney pledged that all primary pupils would receive free meals from next year.
But the Scottish Government now says that P6 and P7 pupils will not be able to benefit until August 2022.
A government spokesman added: “The commitment is to roll out universal free school meals to Primary 6 and 7 children by August 2022 and we will be working with our local authority partners over the course of 2021 to deliver this.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel