Child Poverty Bill

If the Committee is happy for me to do so, I propose to speak to the government amendments, give my view on the opposition amendments and then wind up my remarks. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, for moving Amendment 33A in the absence of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, whose commitment to supporting children I acknowledge. As I said, I will speak to Amendments 41A and 33A and propose government Amendments 80, 81A and 82. Although I support the thrust of what the opposition amendments propose, I cannot accept them. The Government recognise that making the transition into work can be difficult and, to help families to make this move, the Government want to extend free school meals to primary school pupils in working families with an income of up to £16,190 in England from September 2010. This was announced in the Pre-Budget Report in December 2009. The extension will be staged, with the first rollout to up to 50 per cent of eligible primary school pupils from September 2010 and the rest by September 2011. This extension will provide valuable support to low-income families and improve incentives for parents to work. Around 500,000 children will benefit once it is fully rolled out. Although the Secretary of State proposes to make an order that will extend eligibility to children of primary school age, starting with those at key stage 1 or younger from September 2010 and rolling out to those at key stages 2 and 3 from September 2011, it will be possible to make further orders at some point in the future to extend eligibility to secondary school-age children if it is felt that this is necessary. That will not need further primary legislation; the change enables it to be done by secondary legislation. The current legislation—the Education Act 1996—outlines entitlements to free school meals and allows us to change entitlement only on the basis of the benefit receipt of the parent, rather than the age of the child. It is therefore not possible to use an existing order-making power to extend the entitlement to the primary school-age children of parents who are entitled to working tax credits but not to any secondary school-age children in the same family. We therefore wish to amend Section 512ZB of the Education Act 1996 to extend the order-making powers to enable eligibility for a free school meal to be extended to a child if he or his parent is entitled to a tax credit and the child meets certain prescribed conditions. This will allow the Secretary of State to make an order extending eligibility to free school meals to a child if he or his parent is entitled to the working tax credit and the family has a household income of up to £16,190. It will also allow the Secretary of State to prescribe the age of the child. The Education Act 1996 extends to England and Wales, and the change will also apply to Wales. However, it will be a matter for Welsh Ministers to determine whether they wish to use this power to make an order in relation to Wales. Noble Lords may ask why these changes are being made through the Child Poverty Bill. My response is twofold. First, the extension of the free school meal entitlement will assist in the reduction of child poverty by supporting low-income families and improving incentives to work. Once fully implemented, it will lift up to 50,000 children out of poverty. Secondly, it is essential to do this now, as otherwise we will not be able to meet the commitment set out in the PBR that 50 per cent of primary school pupils from low-income families will be eligible by September 2010.