School lunch critics ‘nitpicking’ over 13,500 late meals last week, Seymour says

Sunday, 16 March 2025

Seymour said those who wanted to “nitpick” over 13,500 late meals were welcome to do so.“But I tend to look at it the other way, which is that it’s not what happens in life, it’s how you deal with it.'

David Seymour is again defending the school lunch programme, saying critics are 'nitpicking' over late deliveries.

The Associate Minister of Education says 99% to 100% of school lunches are delivered on time most days.

Problems are being addressed as they arise, leading to improvements, he says.

Critics of the Government’s revamped school lunch programme are “nitpicking” over continuing late delivery of meals, Associate Minister of Education David Seymour says.

Appearing on Q+A with Jack Tame on Sunday morning, Seymour said initial problems with delivery had been addressed and 99% to 100% of meals were being delivered on time on most days.

However, Tame said data from the Ministry of Education showed 97.3% of lunches were delivered on time in the last week.

That meant 13,500 out of 500,000 meals had been late.

David Seymour at the launch of the school lunch scheme. Seymour says critics are “nitpicking” over late meals.

“On those numbers, you’re looking at potentially hundreds of thousands of interrupted learning hours over the year from a government that said it was focused on learning outcomes,” Tame said.

Seymour said those who wanted to “nitpick” over 13,500 late meals were welcome to do so.

“But I tend to look at it the other way, which is that it’s not what happens in life, it’s how you deal with it.

“We have overcome all of those problems to get to a very high percentage of performance. If you think about how life and business works, not many people are delivering at 99% every day, but that is what we’re doing.”

The Government has continued to face criticism about the standard and reliability of the lunches being provided through the new programme.

On Tuesday, one of the lunch providers, Libelle, went into liquidation, while last week a child was burned after the hot contents of a lunch spilled on his leg.

The Government continues to face criticism about the standard and reliability of the lunches provided to students.

The programme has also been beset by problems with lunches not arriving on time, and sometimes not at all.

On Q+A Seymour denied accusations from the Opposition that he was deliberately tanking the scheme because he was opposed to it from the start.

“It’s absolutely true that I campaigned against this policy, but I’m now in a coalition with parties who do want it to continue.

“I am part of the Government, I do government policy to the best of my ability, and I take it very seriously.”

Seymour said the school lunch system as it existed under the previous government was unsustainable.

“Labour’s budget as it went out of government did not have any money for the school lunch programme in 2025, 2026 or any year subsequently.

“To make it sustainable, we have halved the cost by doing it more efficiently. Each time there’s been a problem, we’ve dealt with it and its getting better.”