School meal provision to be extended over the summer holidays

The provision of free school meals for some pupils in Scotland will be extended into the summer break, the first minister has confirmed.

Nicola Sturgeon said more than £12.5 million will go to councils across Scotland to fund the policy, helping about 175,000 young people, although several local authorities had already confirmed the initiative would carry on ahead of the announcement.

Most have been making payments to eligible families, while youngsters have been unable to attend classrooms.

Shortly after Ms Sturgeon's announcement at lunchtime, Westminster announced a U-turn on plans to scrap holiday meal vouchers for youngsters in England.

It came after a campaign led by Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford, who called for food support to be extended.

Ms Sturgeon said the extension north of the border will run up until the start of the new school term in August.

She said: "We know families are under considerable financial pressure and free school meals are a vital help to many.

"But they're also really important to the health and wellbeing of children."

The first minister also announced £230m of extra funding for the economy, which will be used for roads, supporting physical distancing on public transport and help companies with high potential.

Part of the government's money will also go towards the Michelin Innovation Parc site in Dundee.

Ms Sturgeon also announced there will be support put towards skills and training.

At the daily briefing, economy secretary Fiona Hyslop acknowledged the UK's furlough scheme has kept people in jobs.

But she wanted it may be hiding the scale of possible future job losses in Scotland.

She said: "As the economy eases open, we would hope that a considerable amount of those people that are on the job retention scheme will be working with businesses that can recover and return, but not all will.

"In a sense, the job retention scheme is disguising what the underlying unemployment figures are likely to be."

Figures released today show more than 600,000 people in the UK have lost their jobs since the start of the pandemic.

Unemployment in Scotland rose by 30,000 to 107,000 between February and April.