So free school meals for children of low income familes to be scraped

[ruckyrunt]

and only if you live on unemployment benifit will your children get free school meals

Nothing like not giving any incentive to go back to work then.

This gives those people living on benifit another reason not to work and claim tax credits and working tax credits

it was proposed to give low income fmailies free school meals in junior school.

Its the children that suffer, the little mites do end up going hungry whilst money is spent elsewhere

So free school meals for children of low income familes to be scraped..

..into a big trough and rationed all round

Then maybe you should get out of the public sector and work with some of the agencies that pick up the pieces that the bureaucrats leave behind

Tell the young man I worked with today that there is no such thing as hungry, or the pregnant woman whose benefits have been wrongly (which they finally admitted today_ stopped for weeks. I think they would disagree.

when lager,vodka and silk cut are top of the weekly shopping list,its not hard to see why kids dont get fed....but there is no need,and dont forget the tokens for free milk,fruit and veg for under fives....

rucky, that child will still be eligible if her mother doesn't work.

you were talking about the working poor.

i'm working poor, have been for years, i don't many who stay working very long if they're constantly pissed.

and the problem there is not going to be solved by free school meals, but by removing more children from excuses for parents like this. for good.

The kind of parents who allow their children to go hungry (in this country) do not need more money - they need a massive kick up the arse.

Ah, so is it my job as a tax payer to prop up and feed the children of the feckless?

No. They need to bloody well learn how to do it themselves.

Hunger
In Britain
Hah!
I could show you hunger, real hinger in the 3rd world country my husband works in where people survive for years on a plate of rice a day.

There isn't the money kept to roll out free school meals to all children.

If you have children, you feed them. You are responsible for them.

If a parent would rather spend the money on fags/booze/drugs then the child would be better off with an adoptive family.

Problem is though Expat is that the mother is too pissed to do the form and social care are too under resourced to do an assessment.....its always the child that suffers

The cost to the economy would be an additional £1.5 billion a year for universal free school meals.............Im sure that would be cheaper than all the feckless people having their kids housed by social care.

My God, roll on the budget so we can stop all this endless speculation and scaremongering!

One of my friends is a teacher in a very posh part of town and has a couple of pupils whose mothers are alcoholics and are often not fed and wearing dirty clothes. They wouldn't, however, be considered for free meals as their household income is well above average.

Being a shit parent has nothing to do with money or lack of.

this thread is depressing

why are benefits and services to help children always the first thing to come under fire and cut.

other things can and should be cut first

'The kind of parents who allow their children to go hungry (in this country) do not need more money - they need a massive kick up the arse.'

I do agree with this.

This country has a generous social welfare system.

That's not a bad thing, but unfortunately, it's one that needs some revision because it appears we can no longer afford it.

There's no more money to throw at this.

Ah so Onadiet, the naswer is to keep on propping up the offspring of the feckless because the poor kiddies suffer.
Ever thoguht about it from the other side.

The feckless don't bother facing up to their responsibilities because they have bleeding hearts like you to do it fro them.

Agree with thecrackfox and the kick up the arse, as a family of 4 we have around £17,000 income, I am a student, and we manage just fine. DP is a chef so he can knock up meals out of nothing and we don't drink or smoke!

When I got my P60 for last financial year I realised that with DH not earning we were actually below the threshold and entitled to WTC. If DS was in school I would not have dreamt of even asking for free school meals. That should be the preserve of the poorest only so I completely agree that in the current climate it should certainly not be extended.

There's no such thing as a free lunch.

It was pretty bloody cynical of the Labour party to announce an extension - laudable though it would be to extend the nanny state in this particular area - when they surely knew darned well that the country couldn't afford it and they wouldn't be the ones in the position of having to retract.

The problem is, onediet is that a) the pissed mum isn't working, so this is a moot point because child will still be eligible for the meals b) we don't have the money to expand social welfare.

I'd rather see more money on social services than on extending free school meals. That's just putting on a plaster on the bigger problem, which is the number of addicted people who have custody of their kids.

And that would also target the people the Crack Fox is talking about.

Moondog - you really are a cold hearted person arent you.

Night...Im going to get some sleep so I can try and help some people improve their social situation. Enjoy your porridge in the morning. Thank god I got out of the public sector before I became a heartless person like you.

Look, they're going to cut! It's probably not fair that it probably won't be the richest salaries or that.

But that, well, is too bad. They're in power now.

The biggest part of welfare spending is on pensions and housing benefit.

So what to cut then? The free school meals, or how about freezing pensions? Then old people can suffer. Or housing benefit, then all low-income, working or not, can get rent arrears and evicted.

It is not acceptable for parents to spend money on alcohol and cigarettes instead of food for their children.

Parents who don't care enough to feed their kids will almost certainly be neglecting them in all sorts of other ways too. Universal free school meals at massive taxpayer cost won't sort out the neglect and undoubtably high levels of abuse in such cases.

I don't mind spending tax money to educate children but it is not the job of the State to feed them.

I envisage a day when we will be emplying peopel to give birth to the children of the feckless.

Reminds me of some nutter who was on here a while back demanding that some lovely adoptive mother show more 'respect' to the woman who had had her adopted son (and about 6 others, all of whom had been taken from her.)

Yes Diet, I am a wicked bitch-in stark contrast to yuor good self who is undoubtledly achienving sainthood as we speak.

Cut the PCS pension that would save a tidy packet

Of course any change in free school meal availability will have another effect that will probably not have even been considered yet.
A significant amount of funding for schools is based on deprivation and the most commonly used factor for deciding the level of funding to individual schools is free school meal levels!