THE REACTION
Lifeline for struggling families or benefit for middle-classes?
The SNP’S pledge of free school meals for all primary school pupils was welcomed by anti-poverty campaigners and opposition politicians yesterday.
John Dickie, director of the Child Poverty Action Group, said: “With struggling families under increasing pressure as the economic impact of coronavirus plays out, the time has come to remove the means test from school meals.”
Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross also welcomed the plan, saying: “There is no need to wait two more years. We can deliver this now.”
Scottish Labour leader Richard
Leonard said: “Free school meals are essential to support hard-pressed families, against the backdrop of the Covid jobs and incomes crisis.”
However, professor Graeme Roy, director of the Fraser of Allander Institute, said: “This goes to the heart of the trade-off between universal benefits versus targeted benefits. A universal policy means families that can pay for school meals benefit and money that could be targeted more at the poorest families even more is used to support families across the income distribution, including better-off families.
“An argument to support universality is that if everyone is receiving free school meals it removes any stigma around accessing them.
“But the challenge is you are using a quite a lot of government resources in order to support better-off families, resources that could otherwise be targeted at tackling poverty.”