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Order! Order.

Hello, I'm Sean Curran, and this is today in Parliament from BBC Radio 4 for Thursday the 5th of June,

when a minister promised hundreds of thousands more children a school lunch.

Our free school mills expansion will put up to £495 back in parents' pockets every year.

But there are questions about how that expansion will be paid for.

School budgets are stretched to the limit.

Also in this programme, anger over the impact of bank closures.

You have more chance of finding a Labour voter on a farm than you have of seeing a bank in a rural

community.

But first, from September next year, any child in England from a household receiving universal

credit will be entitled to a free school lunch.

The Prime Minister, Sekeir Stama, called the policy a down payment on child poverty,

and the government said the changes would mean an extra half a million children would be eligible

for free school meals.

Under the current rules, households must earn less than £7,400 a year to qualify, and one in four

of all pupils now receives free school meals. The Education Minister Stephen Morgan told

the Commons the new policy was an historic change, which would lift 100,000 children out of poverty.

This is an intervention that backs parents as well as children.

Our free school mills expansion will put up to £495 back in parents' pockets every year.

And for them, that means more freedom in how they support their families,

more choice in how they care for their children,

...