School and education leaders who represent more than a million teachers and support staff have sent an open letter to Liz Truss and her Government demanding Free School Meals are given to all children whose families are receiving universal credit.
The letter, addressed to the Prime Minister, Kit Malthouse and Jeremy Hunt, comes after new data was released by The Food Foundation this week that shows almost 14 million people – four million of them children – are going hungry.
‘Hunger is now a real issue in our school,’ the letter reads. ‘We must make sure that every child has the nutrition they need to be able to learn and thrive…We urge you to act.’
800,000 children living in poverty in England still don’t qualify for free school meals, according to the Child Poverty Action Group. To be eligible for holiday clubs and free lunches, parents must earn under £7,400—and families who earn pennies over that threshold are now choosing between food and heating, charity Feeding Britain previously revealed to Grazia.
‘We are now seeing a radical movement from the Just About Managing [families]…to the “barley surviving families” where food insecurity is a daily challenge and the knock on effect of food poverty [is] a reality for a whole new cadre of people,’ Dr Capstick, Chair of the School Food Review Group and headteacher at a Wiltshire primary school said.
‘The situation is getting worse by the month,’ added The Food Foundation’s Executive Director Anna Taylor. ‘It is essential the Government acts not to protect the long-term health and prospects of our children.’
Campaigners previously wrote to the Government in May to ask for a commitment to an expansion of free school meals to help children who are missing out on vital nutrition but received no reply from the Conservative party.
Liz Truss voted against extending the free school meals programme in 2020 and hasn’t publicly addressed the open letter sent to her today. ‘This is a Government that takes action to protect people,’ her party previously claimed in a statement about food poverty. No action has been taken yet.