Everyone, as I am sure, is aware of the cost-of-living crisis happening right now in the UK. Perhaps many friends, family and yourselves are feeling the financial strain due the rise in inflation, the aftermath of COVID-19 pandemic, Brexit, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
But the cost-of-living crisis is disproportionately affecting and harming those in our society who are the most vulnerable financially, in other words individuals and families of the lowest economic status.
Currently in England there are 800,000 (that is 1 in 3) school-age children living in poverty who are not currently eligible under the government’s current free school meals (FSM) qualification criteria to receive them (Child Poverty Action Group). This is because their annual household income is above £7,400. But these children and their families should be entitled to have free school meals. Many campaigners are calling for the threshold to be extended to allow more families and children who are narrowly missing out on receiving the much-needed support that free school meals provide.
According to the Department for Work and Pensions, close to 1.1 million children aged 5-16 in England live in households below the threshold. But about 1.2 million would be under the limit if it had risen with inflation. That means around 100,000 more children would be eligible for FSM. But because of the lack of action on FSM in England, thousands of children are missing out and going hungry because they are above the threshold which has remained stationary in this cost-of-living crisis.
I have a personal passion and advocacy for the extension of the threshold on FSM, as growing up my family experienced the struggle of balancing money and providing food being a working-class family on a low income. We narrowly missed out on qualifying for FSM. So, my parents had to make-do as many other families like ours had to and still are doing. As a result of not qualifying for free school meals, my parents felt the immense pressure and anxiety of affording food for my siblings and I as well as themselves, sometimes sacrificing a proper meal for themselves in order for us to eat. When I speak to my parents they say how much of a help and a relief having FSM would have been to them, it would have eliminated a huge amount of financial pressure and emotional strain to know that us kids had had a meal at school.
Parents are left with impossible decisions, choosing whether to eat themselves or allow their children to have food. As a parent this constant anxiety of wondering when, where or if you and your child will eat is awful. Follow the link to listen to Naomi’s story: https://www.itv.com/news/2022-05-31/give-free-school-meals-to-all-children-from-universal-credit-households
The bottom line is that in contemporary England children living in disadvantage circumstances are going hungry. But the government has yet to take moral care and duty over protecting the health and lives of such vulnerable children and their families.
It is unsettling to think that in 2022 there are families and more jarringly children living in poverty who are in a food security crisis. This societal issue has been a longstanding one that millions of families have to tackle, fear and deal with on a daily basis. However, the cost-of-living crisis at present has brought into the foreground for many individuals, the scale and enormity of the issue of food insecurity for those most vulnerable.
Recent statistics show that there has been an increase in the number of children eligible for FSM from 20.8% in 2021 to 22.5% in June 2022. The government’s website (gov.uk) states that around 1.9 million children were entitled to FSM in England (June 2022).
The deeply worrying issue of child poverty and food insecurity is an immense and growing problem across the UK. As the figures above state more children are becoming eligible for FSM as families/parent/carers struggle to make ends meet and feed themselves and their children. According to the poverty charity The Joseph Rowntree Foundation across the UK (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) there is an estimated 4.3 million children who live in what is termed “relative poverty”*.
When researching into FSM scheme it came to light that England is lagging a long way behind Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The Scottish government since January 2022 have introduced ‘universal free school meals’ to all children in primary 1 to 5. Moreover, Wales has begun to roll out its plan of giving all primary school pupils free school meals by 2024.
In England all children at a state school in reception, year 1 or year 2 are entitled to FSM. However, governmental rules mean that after these years the child can only receive FSM if their household income is less than £7,400 a year, before benefits and after tax.
By contrast, in Northern Ireland children are eligible for FSM when their household income is less than £14,000 per year. So why is England’s FSM scheme so behind those of other UK nations?
Political figures such as Liberal Democrat MP Munira Wilson has stated that the government “is snatching school lunches away from children by stealth” and that “freezing the threshold is morally, economically and politically bankrupt”**.
Moreover, celebrity figures such as Marcus Rashford and more recently Zayn Malik have taken a public and political stance to the government to offer all children living in poverty Free School Meals. Both individuals have used their platforms to voice the vitalness of FSM and speak of their personal struggle with childhood poverty and food insecurity. In the summer Rashford voiced the necessity for FSM to be continued to be offered to children through the summer holidays.
In the last week or so, Zayn Malik released an open letter on Instagram to the PM voicing his ‘concern about the struggles children are living through because of the cost-of-living’. He highlights the fact that the free school meal offered to a child living in poverty ‘maybe the only hot meal they receive all day’, he speaks of how children are left with no option but to steal food from school out of pure hunger. He speaks of how he ‘personally experienced the stigma surrounding food insecurity’ as well of how impactful food poverty is on a child’s ‘physical and mental health’. Malik picks up on the damaging effects on education, mental and physical wellbeing, and gulf between classes that poverty creates.
What Malik and other campaigns such as Feed the Future and Child Poverty Action Group have demanded from the Conservative government is to extend the current threshold to allow all children in households on Universal Credit to qualify for free school meals.
What all these public figures and organisation have repeated in their speeches is that it is the government’s responsibility to protect the most vulnerable children and families in society and to protect their futures. In addition, it is noted the enormous impact and transformation on a child’s life that will be made through the simple act of giving them a free school meal. Moreover, the relief of pressure and weight FSM offers to families/parent(s).
On 17th November 2022, the Prime Minister’s appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt is due to issue the Conservative government’s autumn statement: which will announce the government’s plan on how to repair the country’s financial turmoil.
It is unlikely that the government will announce any measures or extensions to the FSM scheme (The Independent), to protect those who are suffering the most in England with accessing food. It will be interesting to see if the government has listened to the pleas and campaigns and the figures which undeniably show the urgent need for governmental support to be offered to families and their children living in poverty in England.
These are uncertain and frightening times for families who are only just above the threshold for FSM. Only just surviving, hanging on by their teeth. In times like these food poverty and insecurity cannot be simply accepted as a norm or blunt reality of modern society by politicians and those individuals who are unaffected at the top.
The children and families it affects should not be made to think that childhood hunger is acceptable in 2022 and that it is an issue they have to endure alone and is a fact of their lives. The government has a duty to show compassion and a commit to ‘those who need it most’ (Malik), the future, the young minds, the young lives and families living in poverty in this time of crisis more than ever before.
#freeschoolmeals
*relative poverty is when households receive 50% (or 60%) less income than average median incomes. So, they do have some money but still not enough money to afford anything above the basics
** If the limit had been allowed to rise in line with inflation, it would now be £8,575, making around 110,000 more children eligible for free school meals according to the Liberal Democrats