They warned free school meals would hurt school budgets. Something much more interesting happened

When Sadiq Khan rolled out universal free school meals for all pupils at primary schools in London, there was a warning. The meals were welcome, but experts believed schools could inadvertently lose out on cash elsewhere, cash to support pupils in need.

Schools in the parts of the capital with the highest levels of child poverty could be hit hardest, academics at Northumbria University warned. It was down to something called pupil premium. When a parent registered their child for free school meals, their school also received around £1,500 in extra pupil premium funding. But when parents no longer needed to register for their child to get free school meals, what would happen to the funding?

The fears had precedent. In 2014, the introduction of universal free school meals for infants saw 30% of school leaders report a drop in pupil premium funding.

During a recent visit to a south London family hub, one of London’s deputy mayors, Debbie Weekes-Bernard, told Big Issue: “That is a problem.” Weekes-Bernard added: “One of the things that that was raised to us at the start of the initiative was that there could be a knock on effect on pupil premium, and so we’ve been working with individual schools to make sure that they’re trying to work with their parents to make sure that they are still applying.”

But Weekes-Bernard said: “Maybe we need to shout a bit louder to parents. It’s a lot to ask parents to keep doing.”

It is not just a question for London. Ahead of September’s national expansion of free school meals to all children living in households receiving universal credit, Labour is mulling tweaks which the Conservatives warn could cost schools £1.5 billion. For its part, the government believes the expansion could lift as many as 100,000 children out of poverty and called the Conservatives’ figure a “barefaced lie”.

But the evidence shows the fears in London did not materialise. “This concern was not borne out in DfE [Department for Education] school census data,” a report published in December 2025 found.

Instead, something else took place. Councils have had to find their own ways to keep the pupil premium millions coming.

Read more:

• Auto-enrol eligible children for free school meals to end ‘postcode lottery’, government told
• Education secretary Bridget Phillipson: ‘A child’s background won’t determine their future’
• Mayor of London Sadiq Khan recalls receiving free school meals as a child: ‘I was lucky’

Tower Hamlets was the first local authority in the country to introduce free school meals for all pupils in primary and secondary. Its leaders also started auto-enrolment to make sure schools still got the money, a measure they say has resulted in an extra £3.9 million of funding for pupils. Sadiq Khan’s office put £750,000 towards helping councils find this money – which it says has unlocked £11.5m in pupil premium funding.

“At the time, schools warned that it may result in less pupil premium funding, so we automated the enrolment for free school meals,” the borough’s deputy mayor Maium Talukdar told Big Issue. “We have taken a lead in this area because Tower Hamlets has both the youngest population in London and some of the highest child poverty levels.”

Elsewhere in the capital, Ealing’s auto-enrolment exercise got funding for 219 children. Croydon identified 728 children, getting £1m in extra annual funding. Wandsworth said their automatic enrolment programme had generated £2m in extra pupil premium cash. Newham Council told Big Issue they’d noticed no significant fall in registration for the funding.

“No child in one of the richest countries in the world should be coming to school or going home on an empty stomach,” said Damien McNulty, a national officer with the NASUWT teachers’ union. “Free school meals are probably, for some of the kids, the only hot square meal they get in a given day.”

McNulty added: “I’ve worked in a school for 35 years in Knowsley, where there’ll be a third of our kids in any given year on free school meals and the level of household poverty is absolutely heartbreaking.”

There is no conclusive evidence – yet – that universal primary free school meals have improved pupils’ attainment in their first year, a report from the Education Endowment Foundation found. But families say the policy has made a difference to their finances and stress levels.

As Khan celebrated the milestone of 100 million free school meals in the capital in December, one headteacher told Big Issue funding has not kept up with increasing food prices that outstrip headline rates of inflation. “I don’t think it’s kept pace with it, but I don’t know how it could,” Penny Smith, headteacher of Shoreditch Park primary said. That tallies with the EEF’s finding that almost half of schools said the cost of delivering these meals was greater than the funding on offer.

The government is planning changes to how pupil premium is dished out, reported Schools Week. Under the plans, cash will be triggered by family income rather than free school meal eligibility – potentially avoiding the efforts London’s councils have had to go to. However, the details appear to be up for grabs, and the old system will still apply come September.

“What we have been told is we will see sometime in the spring of 2026, a consultation on changes to pupil premium eligibility,” McNulty said. “We don’t have any dates in our diaries at this stage.”

McNulty added: “If I look at the Labour manifesto and their commitment to reduce child poverty, I would be surprised if they seek to overall reduce the amount of pupil premium funding.”

A spokesperson for Sadiq Khan told Big Issue: “Sadiq is hugely proud to have delivered more than 100 million free school meals to children across London’s state primary schools and has committed to continue funding this unprecedented programme for as long as he is mayor. 

“Throughout this time, City Hall has worked closely with boroughs to simplify the registration process for government funded free school meals and already schools are benefiting from more than £11.5 million of additional pupil premium funding from government each year to support the education of disadvantaged pupils. Councils in London are now required to have a system in place to ensure all eligible pupils are registered, securing many millions more funding across the capital, as we build a better London for everyone.”

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