Government refusing to feed hungry kids again

[noblegiraffe]

The new government food strategy out today should have included a plan to extend free school meals to all families on Universal Credit, as recommended by the review of the school system, and as requested by the teaching and head teaching unions among other educational professionals www.schoolfoodmatters.org/sites/default/files/2022-05/Education%20letter%202022.pdf

It didn't.

Child poverty is at 30%, free school meal provision 22.5%, so there are children going hungry and this situation will only get worse with the cost of living crisis.

www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/heads-deeply-disappointed-lack-free-school-meal-extension

Don't worry about MPs going hungry though, with their subsidised restaurants and generous food allowance.

www.opendemocracy.net/en/food-poverty-parliament-mps-taxpayers-cost-of-living-subsidies/?saved

"Taxpayers have forked out £17m to subsidise bars and restaurants in the House of Commons over just three years, openDemocracy can reveal.

MPs have enjoyed cut-price meals, with the average cost of food in the Members’ Dining Room reduced by more than £1 between 2018 and 2021.

In fact, politicians could have a full three-course meal at the restaurant for as little as £10.41 last year."

Anyone else think that money could be better spent elsewhere?

Please be assured that many of us are in full support of you.

@WishILivedInThrushGreen

It is but due to lack of qualified staff to fill the roles the same as Social Care. Adverts upon adverts are going out some rolling. Brexit took a lot of qualified staff from Wales and the pandemic made people question their careers.

Yep. My son has 15 hours of respite a week - never seen them. No carers available to do the work.

The council can do direct payments so you pay someone you know to look after your DC for those respite hours, but nobody we know will do it! Understandably

It’s never going to be good enough for them.

If they can convince themselves that anyone who’s struggling is in that situation because of their own poor decisions, they feel comforted that it will never happen to them. It’s scary to think that bad luck could cast anybody into poverty, although it’s true. So they tell themselves it’s okay, we must be doing something wrong, and they’d handle it all much better.

What happened before we went into lockdown? Parents managed before then?

No, we still had free school meals before lockdown for very low income families.

We still do

The Tories really should just save time and come out and say that they really don’t care if the poor starve.

Disgusting how many people are just fine with children being hungry because they had the audacity to be born to poor parents.

Yep, and as the cost of living reaches ridiculous levels, giving more children from very low income families a hot meal at school will help alleviate some of the impact.

I think you are confused between the 'Rashford' holiday provision and term time free school meals which have existed for a long time.

As others have pointed out, Wales and Scotland manage universal FSM for primary students, or are extending this to cover them all.

But here we seem to prefer to siphon off taxpayers' money to paying for consultations on metric/imperial measurements. Or paying for Sunak to hire a team to reconstruct his image. Or funding MP's lavish meals. Go figure.

Mycatishere

I see what you're saying. We do know that most food insecure families will make cuts absolutely everywhere before cutting back on food and resources for their children.

Firstly, that just means the cutbacks are happening elsewhere in the family.

So increasing FSM provision prevents the 'invisible' cutbacks a family is making - which usually fall on the mother.

But the incredibly worrying thing that the data is telling us is that, despite all of that, families are having to cutback on food for the children.

The distinction between 'managing' economically insecure families and 'chaotic' families is not there when it comes to food insecurity.

And that's what the data is telling us.

But, really, what it boils down to is this: whatever the type of family, 'chaotic' or otherwise, why would anyone want children going hungry?

I think that low income families should absolutely be given support @thecatfromjapan - my annoyance is with some (not all) of the attitudes on here which take a superior ‘well, SOMEONE will have to feed (and I hate that too, they are children not cattle) these poor, poor children and the parents are clearly feckless.’

Chaotic families are a minority. Low income families tend to generally manage fairly well with what they do have.

I think the posters who characterise parents as feckless are the ones who are arguing that we should therefore not extend FSM.

Those who want it extended are either saying all children should get a free meal like in other countries, or making clear reference to the increasing cost of living as to why it is necessary to extend it.

I am in the all children should have the option of a free school meal camp. No matter why a parent is in financial strife, I have no desire to see children hungry. The only way to capture all cases is to offer meals to all children.

There are already children who used to have school dinners switched to packed lunch (due to cost) but coming in with unsuitable lunches e.g. Grab bags of crisps or cold chicken nuggets. This situation is only going to get worse when winter hits. It makes me angry because it is so preventable.

I agree with this - it should be extended to all school children. This would also help remove any stigma.

Whether some posters like it or not, there are some feckless parents out there. By feckless I mean prioritising themselves and their needs over their children's right to food, clothing and shelter.

Giving FSM to only those on benefits increases the divide and really generates anger towards benefits claimants amongst those struggling but earning slightly too much for any hand outs.

filling up their water bottle is free mate.

So out of touch with reality.