Schools will receive the uplifted universal infant free school meals funding, backdated to 1 April 2022. This will raise the rate per meal to £2.41, up from £2.34. Full allocations will be published later this month.
Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi said, ‘We are increasing our funding for universal infant free school meals because we know that more can be done in the face of rising costs.'
Ministers have been under increasing pressure to increase free school meal provision to help families with the cost of living crisis and faced widespread criticism when their expansion was omitted from the Government's new food strategy white paper, which was published on Monday.
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