Free School Meals for All: coalition share toolkit

🎒Autumn 2026 Action Plan: Change is on the menu

Starting September, all children with a parent or carer receiving Universal Credit can get Free School Meals.

That’s hot healthy school dinners for half a million more pupils. It’s a major step toward ending child hunger in schools, a big relief for families who are struggling, and teachers worried about pupils missing out on the basics to learn.

But too many pupils will still go without.

Too many families in the squeezed middle, still hit hard by the cost-of-living crisis. A missed opportunity to improve ensure every child is equipped to succeed, and strengthen our communities for generations to come.

With a new Government establishing its priorities, this autumn is about making a clear, compelling case for Free School Meals for All.

Read the action plan below and different ways every coalition member can drive it forward.

🏗️ Build the wall of conviction

DeliverTheDinners.org.uk is transforming from a countdown into a digital wall of stories from civil society about the urgency of extending Free School Meals to every primary school child.

When we send the Prime Minister and MPs to this page, they must see a broad, unyielding front.

✍️ Add a statement from your organisation or group about why you back this change using the form below or at this link – testimony that shows why it’s time for Free School Meals for All.

This can be the reason you joined this coalition in the first place, your support for this policy from a social, health, educational, wellbeing or faith perspective.

Draw on your expertise and what you see in your work every day to land the difference this would make to your members, congregants, pupils, patients, volunteers, community.

Comments collected by 23 September will be shortlisted to display on our mini ad van at Labour Party Conference.

📈 Help us hit 5,430 stories. 10 for every sitting MP in England

We will feature your comment alongside stories from parents, carers, educators, frontline workers and everyone that believes every child should get a healthy, hot meal at school every day.

We're building a chorus of testimonies we will collate by constituency – and you can help us cover every MP.

Bring your people in to leave a comment:

Use our email template to recruit your members, supporters or followers
Grab our social media assets to share it wider

Comments collected by 23 September will be shortlisted for display on our ad van at Labour Party Conference.

[NCLB] Back to school: Partner #DeliverTheDinners email template

Add the 'Deliver the Dinners' comment wall to your website

To boost engagement with this campaign moment, you can now embed our comment wall on your website.

It's a fantastic way to show solidarity and amplify the stories of the parents, teachers and organisations on the site.

On the right you can see a preview of what the embed would look like.

Send the following iframe embed code to your IT team:

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📢 Take the message to Labour Party Conference

We’re sending a mobile ad van with your comments and collected stories to the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool, where policymakers and delegates can’t miss them.

Once the Labour Conference wraps up, we will send MPs a compilation of local constituent and civil society testimonies, to urge them to attend our Back-to-School pre-Budget Briefing in October.

🍂 Dial up the pressure for the Autumn Budget

As the Mayor, Andy Burnham was the first politician to join this very coalition and our demand for Free School Meals for All.

This Autumn Budget is the Prime Minister’s first major policy test. An opportunity to come full circle and deliver the dinners.

With fresh NEU research on school food and the pupils missing out, we will hold a Back-to-School Briefing in October to equip MPs with the evidence they need to encourage No. 10 to act. Watch this space for more details soon.

Have questions, or ideas for other ways to take action, email us at campaigns@nochildleftbehind.org.uk

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