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Students eating their school dinner from trays and plates during lunch in the canteen at Royal High School Bath, September 12, 2018
'These figures should be a wake-up call'
The National Education Union (NEU) welcomed new research today showing that free school meals improve reading skills and obesity rates.
NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede said the gains for children’s health and ability to learn are “immeasurable” as Labour faced increasing pressure to back a national free meals rollout for primary schools in England.
The study by the Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex, found levels of obesity were reduced by 7 per cent to 11 per cent among reception children in the four London boroughs that have already adopted the policy.
Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson has pledged to have breakfast clubs in every primary school, funded from the abolition of non-dom tax status.
Offering free meals to all state primary school pupils would cost about £1 billion a year, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
