The Food Foundation has welcomed commitments from London mayor Sadiq Khan to provide free school meals for primary school children over the next year, to help families cut costs amid the cost-of-living crisis.
The move will be introduced in September with emergency funding of £130 million, saving families around £440 for every child and benefitting 270,000 children for the 2023/2024 academic year.
The decision comes in response to the Feed the Future campaign led by The Food Foundation in partnership with seven other organisations, which calls on central government to provide free school meals for the 800,000 children across England living in poverty, who are still not eligible.
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Universal Free School Meal entitlement at primary level is being rolled out in Scotland and Wales following commitments from the devolved governments, but in England the national eligibility threshold remains set at a household income of below £,7,400 (after tax, excluding benefits).
“We welcome the timely and decisive leadership shown by Labour’s London Mayor to protect families from the soaring cost of living,” executive director of The Food Foundation, Anna Taylor said.
She added: “This initiative at last recognises the crucial importance of Free School Meals in safeguarding children’s diets, health and learning.
“It is a huge step forward for our Feed the Future campaign calling on policy leaders to extend Free School Meals to more children, which has received huge cross-party and public support.”
Taylor said that struggling families across the capital will be “breathing a huge sigh of relief thanks to today’s news,” with the knowledge that “their children will be guaranteed a hot nutritious school meal every day, regardless of their background.”
However, she also commented: “We mustn’t forget the hundreds of thousands of children outside the capital who are living below the poverty line but don’t qualify for the Free School Meals. Without action from central Government, there remains an unjust postcode lottery when it comes to Free School Meal access.
“Government now has the opportunity to deliver on its levelling up promises by addressing the inequalities inherent in our Free School Meal system.
“We need funding it the next budget that levels the playing field, so at the very least all children living in poverty across England are guaranteed a daily nutritious meal at school – not just as an emergency one-year measure but as an integral long-term provision in our state school system.”
It comes as a new progress report from the Food Foundation has found that almost half of low-income families are buying less vegetables as inflation and rising prices severely impact the UK.
