Mayor of London Sadiq Khan visited Mandeville Primary School in Hackney where he was quizzed on his free school meal programme.
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00:00 So I'm here at Mandeville Primary School celebrating 1.4 million meals a week.
00:05 At this stage so far, 17 million meals a week.
00:08 It's a bit ahead of where we thought we were going to be.
00:10 The estimates we had was roughly speaking 80-85%.
00:14 We're approaching that level, we're a bit higher, but that's fine.
00:17 There's more than enough money in the kit to make sure every child at State Primary School receives a free school meal.
00:23 And here at Mandeville we're seeing the benefits of that in relation to the social skills the children are learning,
00:27 but also speaking to some of the teachers, they're more attentive in the classroom,
00:31 and I think it'll lead to more productivity in schools like Mandeville.
00:34 So what we did is we worked closely with the five boroughs that already provide free school meals, universal free school meals.
00:41 They were seeing uptakes of between 80-85%. We funded for 90%.
00:46 If it goes above that, there's money on the side of contingency, £5 million to support them.
00:51 We're not approaching there yet, we're a bit short.
00:54 Some parents understandably send their children with packed lunch, that's fine.
00:59 Nobody expected, in those five boroughs that already have universal free school meals,
01:03 none of them have on average 100%. On average, they're between 80-85%.
01:08 What I'd suggest the cross-party assembly do is lobby the government,
01:11 because we in London have shown how for one year, because of the constitution crisis, can fund it.
01:18 What's important is we've had an autumn statement, and those cross-party assemblies didn't lobby the government.
01:23 Then I'd encourage them to lobby the government before the spring budget.
01:26 If the Chancellor in the spring budget announces funding, then I'd hope that schools across the country,
01:30 including London, would benefit from universal free school meals.
01:32 [BLANK_AUDIO]