Free School Meals and Child Poverty in the UK
Free School Meals and Child Poverty in the UK:
On the 21st October 2020, just days before school broke up for Autumn half-term, a motion was put in Parliament to extend free school meals over the holidays. The motion was denied with 321 Noes against 261 Ayes. A No 10 spokesperson said in response to Marcus Rashford’s push for a further extension, that “it’s not for schools to regularly provide food to pupils during the school holidays.” So, whose job is it to feed a hungry child whose family cannot afford food?
Boris Johnson praised Marcus Rashford’s “contribution to the debate around poverty,” but poverty is not a debate! It is the lived experience of 14 million people in the UK. Coronavirus has highlighted these income inequalities and social deprivation that already exist across the country, and has deepened them. When parents struggle, children struggle.
Pre-existing Structural Inequality
There are 4 million children in our country living in poverty- that’s 1 in 4 children- in the sixth richest country in the world! One of the main reasons that so many in our society live in hardship- that so many cannot afford food- is because we live in a system embedded in structural inequality. This structural inequality is evidenced by low wage jobs, a punitive benefit system, sanctions to those reliant on benefits, the five week wait for universal credit, the stigmatisation of those who need welfare support, and a currency of debt and credit. The minimum wage is supposed to provide enough for a family to live off; it is some minimum when so many are living month to month and needing foodbanks to provide the food after struggling to pay rent, heating, gas and electricity, and other necessities needed to survive.
Households are running on low incomes and for many children, a free school meal is the only food that they will eat that day. A report into child poverty by Buttle UK, pre-pandemic, reached out to support workers to study just how the children of families living in poverty are disadvantaged when it comes to the current school system. The report found that 88% of respondents regularly see (at least once a week) parents being unable to afford the basics (food, fuel and household items), and 77% see children having to be fed either breakfast or dinner at school. In England, 1.3 million children claimed for free school meals in 2019, and analysis from the Food Foundation estimates that a further 900,000 children in England have applied for free school meals since the pandemic began. The raise in demand for free school meals is due to the pandemic strengthening pre-existing structural inequalities- causing reduced incomes, furloughs, loss of jobs, for many it has been their first contact with the benefits system- meaning a greatly reduced income and a 5 week wait for Universal Credit. As the pandemic continues and financial hardships worsen, as well as Winter which brings increased household costs such as more expensive heating bills, so grows the need for reform and support.
Are people abusing the system or is this system abusing the people? Poverty is a cycle to be broken, and that is what we work towards everyday as we support and empower people at the Big Help Project. A punitive benefits system, low waged jobs, an unliveable minimum wage, and debt culture is the system children are living in- growing up in poverty, hungry, with only a free school meal to sustain them each day- and a motion to sustain that for longer was rejected! Change is needed- reforms are needed to set right the injustice and disparity in our system that is so embedded in structural inequality!
If you are in need of a free school meal, please see: https://www.schoolmealfinder.org/ If you are in food crisis and need food support in Knowsley, please call 0151 538 8243
29 OCTOBER 2020