I know that. I think that free school lunches are a good thing and if anything should be extended to all primary children. I can live with means testing, but it should be mandatory for other parents to pay for a meal from school rather than provide their own, and I think that the criteria for means testing should be revisited.You seem to be missing the point. ALL children do not get free school dinners already, only year 1-3, from Year 3 up it's based on familes who need the help get the dinners for free.
In which case, they should have couched it in those terms. Clearly *someone* is going to have to supervise while the children have their breakfast but it wouldn't surprise me if they expected schools to fit it into their existing budgets. This policy was supposed to be a cost-cutting measure, and while breakfasts are smaller (hence cheaper, but really not just 7p unless by "free breakfast" they mean Tesco value oats bathed in warm water) increasing the length of the school day doesn't really feel like it's going to cut many costs.The proposal is instead of free dinners to children in yr 1-3 for families who can afford to pay a little for a school lunch, ALL children yr 1-6 get a free breakfast and (as I say i'm guessing at this bit but it makes sense) a free extra half an hour of morning childcare which is a huge help to working families and ALL children from families who need help continue to get free school lunch.
The issue I have with this proposal is that it takes something that's good (free lunches) and cuts it, replacing it with an uncosted alternative that might not end up being any cheaper after all, and so may end up being ditched while the cut remains. I'm not convinced that Labour's "free everything!" approach is correct either, but frankly I'm getting sick of cuts when many middle earners like myself could afford a slight tax hike to everyone's benefit. Funny that nobody's really willing to put *that* to the electorate...