Any child in England whose parents receive Universal Credit will be able to claim free school meals from September 2026, the government has said.
Parents on the credit will be eligible regardless of their income. Currently, their household must earn less than £7,400 a year to qualify.
The government says the change will make 500,000 more pupils eligible, which the prime minister said would “help families who need it most”.
Labour has faced scrutiny over plans to tackle child poverty, and is yet to decide whether to scrap the two-child benefit cap.
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said “working as quickly as we can” on next year’s plans to extend free school meals.
She said the changes to free school meals would save parents £500 a year and “lift 100,000 children out of poverty”.
Phillipson has stated it was her “moral mission” to make sure fewer children grew up in the kind of poverty she experienced.
“We know if children are arriving at school ready to learn that makes a massive difference to their outcomes”, she said. “If you’re hungry, it’s really hard to concentrate.”
The Department for Education has set aside £1bn to fund the change up to 2029.
Phillipson declined to say where that money would come from, but said schools would not have to find money for it and that details would be set out in next week’s spending review.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said: “Feeding more children every day, for free, is one of the biggest interventions we can make to put more money in parents’ pockets, tackle the stain of poverty, and set children up to learn.”
The government has also pledged £13m to a dozen food charities across England to “fight food poverty” and said there will be a review of standards so that school meals are healthy.
