No child should be going to bed hungry in this country
Why does it always seem to be children who have to bear the brunt of government decisions? We are seeing the same patterns repeated again and again.
Education’s dwindling budgets have created the need for schools having no alternative but to swap hot meals for sandwiches because of the rising cost of food and the inevitable funding cuts. For vulnerable pupils these school meals may be the only substantial meal they get each day.
Schools are now having to make the choice of offering smaller portions or put up the prices of paid-for meals that will only increase the financial strain on families with average earnings and not eligible for free school meals but who are already facing school debt because they are unable to keep up with the present cost of payments.
School meal funding for children in the first three years of their school life has increased to £2.34 a meal. The increase is 4p since the ‘first three years’ rule was introduced in 2014. I’ll repeat that: A 4p rise per meal in the past eight years. That is well below the rate of inflation without the soaring cost of food prices due to geopolitics.
I can’t imagine the stress of so many parents wondering if they can afford a meal at school for their children. No doubt many go without themselves. Parents should only be worrying if their child has completed their homework not if they have enough in their bellies.
How can this government, which has been in power since 2010, live with its decision of a 4p rise in eight years?
Maintaining a good level of food availability in schools should be a priority. Children should not be going hungry. But alas, we saw our government not long ago voting to end free school meals.
To qualify for a free school meal, households must have an income of less than £7,400 a year, excluding benefits.
This depressingly low level of eligibility means families go into debt and are pushed out of qualifying for free school lunches. These are kids going hungry while our millionaire, and now it seems billionaire, government runs as fast as a dead snail to ‘help’ people out of poverty and desperation.