Since 2018, children have only been eligible for free school meals if their household income is less than £7,400 per year, meaning hundreds of thousands of children living in poverty have been unable to access free school meals.
In Brighton and Hove, 1 in 4 children live in poverty after household costs. A quarter of those reliant on emergency food provision each week are children.
This expansion will provide significant financial relief for families. It’s estimated that households claiming Universal Credit could save almost £500 per year per child on school lunches. This will ensure more children receive nutritious meals during school hours, which supports their learning and concentration in the classroom, physical health and development and overall wellbeing.
The Food Partnership also welcome the announcement that Government plans to revise School Food Standards, so every school is supported with the latest nutrition guidance as well as promising funding to redistribute thousands of tonnes of fresh produce directly from farms to fight food poverty in communities.
These announcements give a welcome boost to the Brighton and Hove’s Food Strategy Action Plan, which is led by the Food Partnership and was published earlier this year.
Ali Ghanimi, who leads the city’s food strategy said:
“The extension of Free School Meals to families on Universal Credit will help our action to ‘strengthen the nutritional safety net for children and young people’. Brighton and Hove City Council has already been working hard to increase take up of Free School Meals for all eligible families and we wish to thank them for that.
We are also working with our partners to develop a whole school approach to food, ensuring that children and young people not only eat well but have the skills to be able to grow and cook their own food, develop healthy eating habits and waste less.”
We want to thank the Government for this bold move and all the many food campaigners who have helped make this happen. We also wish to thank the city’s Emergency Food Network. These wonderful volunteers and food project staff work tirelessly all year round to help alleviate hunger.
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