80% of the UK public are now calling on the government to extend free school meals to children in households that receive Universal Credit (UC), as the number of families suffering from food poverty has doubled within a year.
According to a YouGov poll commissioned by charity organisation The Food Foundation and its Feed The Future campaign, the data features a national sample of 8,000 respondents – with 8 in 10 believing that free school meals should be extended further, a rise from 72% last year.
In January 2023, 21.6% of households with children reported that their children had directly experienced food insecurity in the past month, affecting an estimated 3.7 million children. This is compared with 11.6% in January 2022.
As families suffer the worst cost of living crisis for generations, holding them back from accessing the healthy food that children require, there is now overwhelming support for government action.
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Support for the policy is high in a range of key marginal seats at risk of being lost by the Conservatives in the next election. Many of these seats are in constituencies held by the Prime Minister and his most senior cabinet ministers like Jeremy Hunt, Dominic Raab, Steve Baker and Matt Vickers.
England also lags far behind the devolved nations. Scotland and Wales are rolling out universal free school meals in primary schools, and in Northern Ireland the income threshold for UC is double that of England (£14,000).
“We have been tracking these trends for some time, the levels of food insecurity among children continue to be terribly concerning, and point to big holes in the Government’s safety net,” executive director of The Food Foundation, Anna Taylor said.
“These latest findings now show the public is overwhelmingly in favour of greater government support for the millions of families suffering the worst effects of the cost-of-living crisis.”
Taylor added: “By extending Free School Meals to more children in England in the next budget, the Government could deliver a policy change that is popular with voters, targeted and timely, and truly delivers on levelling up.”
It comes alongside The Food Foundation’s ‘Feed the Future’ campaign, where Labour Mayor of London announced last week that he will be funding free school meals for all primary schoolchildren in the capital as an measure from September 2023.
