London: Nick Clegg ignored warnings his flagship free school meals plan would be so expensive that spending cuts on “teaching and learning” could be required, emails revealed Saturday.

The deputy prime minister railroaded through a controversial pledge to give free meals to all infant school pupils in the face of opposition from Tory Education Secretary Michael Gove.

The Liberal Democrat leader always claimed the scheme was fully funded. But leaked emails show that officials knew that this was “not true”.

The revelations prompted a former aide to Gove to accuse Clegg of “lying” to cover up the “abuse of taxpayers’ money”.

The correspondence was revealed after being leaked to Radio 4’s World At One programme. When the Daily Mail and other media tried to access the emails via a Freedom of Information request, the request was blocked on the grounds of cost, apparently after the direct intervention of Lib Dem education minister David Laws.

According to the leaked documents, a letter was sent by Gove to Danny Alexander, the Lib Dem Chief Secretary to the Treasury, on November 29 last year, saying the policy would cost more than £1.1 billion (Dh6.8 billion) over two years.

“I am sure that you will agree with me that we must not risk forcing schools to subsidise meals by reducing their spending on teaching and learning,” he wrote.

“I would be grateful for your assurance that my budget will be increased to fully cover the cost of this new commitment, as I am unable to fill any shortfall from within my existing budget.”

A week later, Clegg made an announcement that an extra £150 million had been found to fund free school meals, part of which came from unspent Department for Education maintenance funds.

An email was sent from a senior civil servant at the DFE (Department for Education) to the offices of Clegg, Laws and Chancellor George Osborne that morning, pointing out that the statement was wrong, and warned scarce resources may have to be diverted away from the maintenance of buildings and ensuring there are enough school places.

It read: “First, the £150 million is less than the £200 million we believe will actually be required to deliver this policy.

“Second, more importantly, the gap between the deputy prime minister’s figure and the Treasury funding will require our Secretary of State to divert money from providing school places to meet basic need or from meeting urgent maintenance needs in schools.

“Both these scenarios are wholly unacceptable to this Department and to our Secretary of State.”

A second email sent to civil servants in the Treasury said: “I am concerned that there is a risk that the deputy prime minister and others are about to make public statements that suggest that the additional £80 million for free school meals capital can be found from within the Department’s budget without an impact on other education capital budgets.

“Firstly, because this is not true, and secondly, because it will be relatively easy for people outside the Department to see that it is not true.”

Dominic Cummings, Gove’s former special adviser, told the BBC: “Clegg has been lying about the announcement from the start to cover up the abuse of taxpayers’ money for his personal ends. Gove was trying to safeguard taxpayers’ money but Clegg ignored him.”

Lib Dem deputy leader Sir Malcolm Bruce accused “disgruntled” Tories opposed to the policy of deliberately leaking the information.

Referring to Gove he said: “I think it would do him some good if he actually put a bit of a constraint on some of the ideologues who are trying to undermine it and acknowledge that he has signed off this policy and fully supports it.”

Laws said: “The funding package announced in December was agreed across government and the full amount of estimated revenue cost was transferred to the DFE from the Treasury so that schools would not have to pay for free meals from their teaching budgets.