Rejected petition Free school meals for all pupils in Wales

We call upon Welsh Government to immediately

- Amend the eligibility criteria for Free School Meals so that any child in any family receiving Universal Credit or equivalent benefit is eligible.

- Permanently extend free school meal entitlements to families with no recourse to public funds

- Introduce universal infant free school meals across Wales

As the first step towards implementing universal provision of nutritious free school meals for all school-aged children in Wales.

More details

Every school age pupil in Wales deserves the right to nutritious free school meals.

According to Child Poverty Action Group over half of children living below the UK poverty line in Wales (over 70,000) are not currently eligible for free school meals. This is not acceptable.

Free schools meals help struggling families, reduce stigma and inequality, and improve children’s health and wellbeing.

We believe the benefits of universal free school meals for all school-aged children in Wales will include

- Reducing poverty and inequality
- Helping family budgets and home life
- Boosting learning and education attainment
- Raising concentration levels of pupils throughout the day
- Creating bonds in the dinner hall through shared meal experiences
- Improving health inequalities among children
- Reducing obesity
- Increasing free school meals uptake by reducing stigma associated with means tested benefits.

Why was this petition rejected?

There’s already a petition about this issue. We cannot accept a new petition when we already have one about a very similar issue, or if the Petitions Committee has considered one in the last year.

Another petition calling for free school meals for all children in Wales is already collecting signatures: https://petitions.senedd.wales/petitions/244369

You are more likely to get action on this issue if you sign and share a single petition.

We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards

Rejected petitions are published in the language in which they were submitted

Date submitted 11 November 2020
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