Yes Franca, but for many of us, if they really were introduced, it would be a massive, serious blow to our household economy and the means-tested freebies we're always told we'd be entitled to, do not exist.
That assumption that if you are living on or around the poverty line, then you must be entitled to free meals etc., is one of the most widespread and inaccurate assumptions there is. It's always used in these types of arguments as if it's some kind of panacea; if you can't afford xyz,it's OK there's a safety net. Except there isn't, as most poor people work in the cash economy and don't claim (and are not entitled to claim) the benefits which entitle them to xyz.
Sorry I keep droning on about this, but £100ish a month for some people represents a significant percentage of their income after having paid the fixed costs like council tax, utilities etc. For many people, the only leeway they've got in how much they need to spend each month in order to buy extra stuff (like clothes, new shoes, entertainment etc.) is in their food bill; so if they got this extra fixed cost for their children's school food, then that cost would actually impact on the amount of money they would have available to spend not only on the extra stuff, like entertainment or whatever, but actually on the food budget for the family as a whole. That just flies in the face of financial logic. For many poor people in the UK who are in paid work, they can afford to give their kids decent meals at home, but the irony is that that would actually become harder if the govt insisted that they would do it for us at school and charge us more for it than if they left it to us to organise. How mad would that be?