Two-child Benefit Cap and Child Poverty

Debate between Kim Johnson and Rachael Maskell

Tuesday 11th July 2023 Westminster Hall

[Kim Johnson]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend. We need to end this horrendous two-child policy and ensure all children have the opportunity to thrive and grow and not live in poverty.

Last September, when I hosted an event in Parliament in partnership with the End Child Poverty coalition and the National Education Union calling for universal free school meals to help alleviate child poverty and close inequalities in education and health, we heard from some incredible youth ambassadors. They told us of the stigma of being singled out for free school meals. One said the impact was like sitting in a classroom wearing a badge on their back saying they were poor. Another told us she remembered her mother skipping meals to make sure she and her siblings had something to eat and that now, years later, her own relationship with food and the guilt she associated with eating is still having an impact on her. Members in all parts of the House will be painfully aware of so many similar personal stories from the constituents they work with every day.

Last year the Joseph Rowntree Foundation annual report on UK poverty showed that child poverty in families with more than two children increased from 33% to 47% between 2012-13 and 2019-20, reaching levels not seen since before 1997. In my constituency, 11 children in a class of 30 are living in poverty, and of the 1,400 children in households in receipt of universal credit, 444 are not eligible for extra support due to having two or more siblings born after 6 April 2017.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend mentioned the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which is based in my constituency. It has done work not only to demonstrate that the two-child limit is having an impact on children but also that the benefits base is not focusing on the essentials and the essential costs. On top of that, the broader rental market area is not paying the way on private rent either. Families in my constituency are struggling with the accumulation of cuts and the drawback that the Government have put in place. Does my hon. Friend understand why this Government are punishing children and families in such a way?

[Kim Johnson]

I do not know why the Government are punishing children and forcing them into poverty. It is a crying shame.

These families are disproportionately affected by increases in the cost of living and, as has just been mentioned, are treated punitively by the benefits system. Some 1.3 million children across the country are currently losing out under the cap, with their families losing on average £3,235 directly out of their pockets. With new stats due on Thursday 13 July, the Child Poverty Action Group and Save the Children predict the number will rise to 1.5 million.

Free School Meals and Child Poverty

Debate between Kim Johnson and Rachael Maskell

Thursday 8th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Kim Johnson]

I thank my hon. Friend for the intervention and I definitely agree that universality is the way forward for free school meals.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing the debate. In York in 2021, 25.3% of children were in poverty, and that number will have gone up substantially in the last 12 months. One thing that really struck me about the event that my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) is talking about was the stigma that children experienced because they were different from other children. For that reason alone, surely we should have a universal offer of free school meals for children, so that they have the same stature as their peers and are not marked out as a child needing free school meals.

[Kim Johnson]

I thank my hon. Friend for the intervention and will come on to the point about stigma later.

More than 200,000 children are eligible for free school meals but are currently missing out. At my free school meals event with the National Education Union on Tuesday in Parliament, which received cross-party support, we heard some heartbreaking testimonies from youth ambassadors for the End Child Poverty coalition.

Liv, Emilia and Naomi, who have lived experiences of food poverty, spoke passionately about their personal experiences of being singled out in front of their friends and watching their parents skip meals to ensure that they were fed. They spoke about the long-term impact on their mental health, on their relationship with food, and on their responses to the current pressures of the cost of living crisis, and about the trauma response that growing up with such pressures has instilled in them. One said that having free school meals was like having a badge pinned to their blazer that read “Poor.” That stigma often worsens in secondary school and can be incredibly alienating for children struggling to fit in and thrive.

Data from the Child Poverty Action Group has shown that 800,000 children currently living in poverty are not eligible for free school meals, and miss out on holiday support and other benefits. That number is increasing every day, with many families falling into debt with school lunches. Crucially, children are denied a meal if they are more than two weeks in arrears.

On the steps of Downing Street on Tuesday, the new Prime Minister said that

“we have what it takes to tackle those challenges”

and that we can “ride out the storm”, but the energy price guarantee announced this afternoon will not support families already in crisis. They will be paying far more, not less.

A recent report from the Food Foundation revealed that about 2.6 million children live in households that missed meals or struggled to access healthy food. Levels of insecurity in households with children have risen by more than 40% since the start of this year alone. We are one of the richest countries in the world, yet so many low-paid workers, including public sector workers, rely on food banks. Nearly 70% of food bank providers say, however, that they may need to turn people away or shrink the size of emergency rations due to a completely unsustainable surge in demand that will prevent them from feeding the hungriest families this winter.

The Government-commissioned national food strategy, authored by Henry Dimbleby, calls for the extension of free school meals for all under-16-year-olds in households earning under £20,000, to help to tackle the nutritional gap between rich and poor in this country. Children in the most disadvantaged areas are now being diagnosed with Victorian diseases such as rickets, scurvy and scarlet fever—and that was even before the cost of living crisis.

Four councils have rolled out universal free school meals for all primary school children. Southwark pioneered that flagship initiative a decade ago in response to the so-called once-in-a-lifetime economic crisis. The results speak for themselves. Pupils made four to eight weeks’ more progress than expected. The schools have seen a massive improvement in attainment over the last 10 years and have gone from being fourth bottom to more than 90% being rated good or outstanding by Ofsted. Nearly a quarter more children were eating vegetables at lunch time, and there was an 18% reduction in children consuming crisps and soft drinks. Hammersmith and Fulham has seen a 60% increase in secondary school children on free school meals since 2018, and it is now piloting universal free school meals for secondary pupils.

Universal provision contributes to family food security. It improves pupils’ concentration and behaviour. It improves attendance, which is also a key aim of this Government’s Schools Bill. It increases the amount of fruit and vegetables and reduces the amount of sugar and salt consumed by pupils at lunch time. Crucially, it also reduces the stigma that many children who receive free school meals feel when they are singled out from their peers.

Often, stigma and mental health are overlooked in Government policy discussions—poorer children are expected to put up and shut up, and be grateful for their handouts—but the reality is incredibly damaging. It can cause long-term trauma and problems, and makes the means-tested policy far less effective. Yes, universal free school meals will cost. Yes, they should be understood as an investment in our future. However, these are children, and everything we do should allow them to flourish and thrive. Their bright futures should be our priority. We cannot lose sight of the human impact of not feeding our children, or of choosing an arbitrary threshold to decide who deserves to go hungry and who deserves to be fed.

Universality provides far greater opportunities to improve educational attainment across the board and to reverse the ever-growing inequalities. Investing in our children now will be better for everyone in the long term. Prevention is better than cure. Doing nothing now will reduce the productivity of the future workforce. It will put greater pressures on the NHS. It risks a generation suffering from poor mental health and poor physical health, and being trapped in a never-ending cycle of poverty.

[Rachael Maskell]

My hon. Friend is being generous with her time. I very much want York to adopt free school meals for all primary school children, and then to look at rolling that out to secondary school children. However, I also want to ensure that children in my constituency have access to a hot nutritious meal in their stomachs every day through the school holidays. I take it that my hon. Friend will also be campaigning against the school holiday hunger that we still see in our constituencies.

[Kim Johnson]

I thank my good friend for her contribution, and I definitely will be promoting food security during holiday periods. It is not just about children having a hot nutritious meal; in reality, it means so much more. It sets the foundations for improved behaviour and improved attainment. It means better health, better jobs, higher salaries and higher life expectancy—in short, the chance to break the vicious cycle of poverty.

UK food prices have hit the highest levels since 2008. Children are going hungry right now. They simply cannot afford to wait for this Government while they are dragging their feet. The last time the Tories tried to resist helping hungry children, there was public outrage—