Election 2023: Free school lunches here to stay, Hipkins promises

Chris Hipkins says Labour would commit $650 million to continue the free school lunches programme at nearly 1000 schools over the next three years. Photo / George Novak

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has committed to continuing the free school lunch programme if Labour is re-elected.

In this morning’s announcement, he said Labour would commit $650 million to continue the programme at nearly 1000 schools over the next three years.

“This is a programme we are incredibly proud of, and parents, principals and teachers are all agreed on the benefits of kids learning on full tummies. Principals I meet with tell me this is a game-changer for supporting kids’ wellbeing, attendance and focus.

“We know that it’s tough for many families right now with the rising cost of living, which is why we’re prioritising programmes like free and healthy school lunches, which save families $33 per week per child, or up to $1250 per year per child on average.”

He said the programme was run in a quarter of the country’s schools.

Load more

“These are the schools that face the largest socio-economic barriers to achieving in education – we know that if the programme wasn’t in place there would be many children who would go without.”

Hipkins said the Act Party had already committed to scrapping the programme, so its future was uncertain under a National/Act coalition.

Labour has already made a series of education policy announcements, including compulsory financial literacy classes in schools from 2025.

It would also continue with its New Zealand Curriculum refresh, updates to NCEA assessments and the common practice model for teaching literacy and mathematics.