Current status: Answered by Shirley-Anne Somerville on 16 February 2022
To ask the Scottish Government how many years of funding are in place to pay for the free school meals programme in its entirety, and whether this funding is sufficient to ensure that local authorities will not need to use their funding to deliver the policy.
The 2022-23 draft budget provides £42.2 million to provide universal free school lunches to all children in primaries 4, 5 and special schools to 5 during school term-time. This is in addition to the £53 million per year for universal provision for pupils in primary 1 to 3 which has been in place since 2015. The 2022-23 draft budget includes a £30 million capital allocation for initial investment in school kitchens ahead of roll-out of free lunches to all primary school children (P1-P7) later in the parliamentary term. We will continue to work with our partners in local authorities to plan for the further expansion of free school lunch provision over the next academic year.
The draft budget also provides £21.75 million to provide support to free school meals eligible families during the school holidays.