Job redundancies during the recession have been blamed for the first annual increase in three years in the number of children eligible for free meals, with a rise from 15.5 per cent to 15.9 per cent in nursery and primary schools.
Children are eligible for free meals if their families have an income, including benefits, below £16,000 per year.
Tim Nichols, press and parliamentary liaison officer for the Child Poverty Action Group, said that he was not surprised that more families are qualifying for free school meals with 'unemployment growing in the recession'.
He added, 'The Government must ensure that families newly reliant on benefits have access to expert advice on the support they are entitled to so that take-up of free school meals and other benefits is as high as possible.'
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