Support for Children Entitled to Free School Meals

Patricia Gibson Excerpts

Wednesday 26th May 2021 Westminster Hall

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered support for children entitled to free school meals.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq.

The UK is a rich country. As a G7 nation with a GDP that many countries can only look at in envy, we simply must do more to provide for our own citizens and combat the ever-increasing levels of child poverty. With huge wealth in many parts of the country and an economy with the most potential in Europe, we can do far better than we are, and MPs should not need to apply for debates such as the one we are having today. However, across the country and in this very city, the richest 1% live a gilded life, a handful of streets away from the most deprived neighbourhoods in the most unequal areas. We live on the same streets; we walk the same streets; but we inhabit different worlds. We are a deeply unequal society, and the fact that so many families rely on the meagre support available from the state to feed their children is nothing short of a national outrage. It is a clear demonstration that our economic system is not working for so many.

In some local authority areas, child poverty is reaching 50%, while the wealth of the richest 1% has grown exponentially. As per The Sunday Times’ rich list, printed last Sunday, the richest man in the country saw his wealth grow by £7 billion last year, while in my own borough of Haringey, some 8,000 children—a staggering 29%—rely on free school meals. That figure has increased by 1,700 over the past year. The Trussell Trust has said that over 50% of those using its food banks had never used one before this year, so we are seeing a huge increase. Some 1 million eight to 17-year-olds visited a food bank in the months of December and January—I would like the Minister to dwell on that for a moment. We see this stark inequality among many families in every part of London, and not just in London: people are relying on state support to feed their children, not through any fault of their own but as a damning indictment of the soaring cost of living and the broken economic system. Families are facing above-inflation increases in water and fuel bills and the Government’s council tax increases, and family budgets are at breaking point.

Outside London, Labour analysis has shown that the number of children eligible for free schools meals has increased in nearly every region and nation of the UK. It would be wrong to say that this rise in entitlement is purely down to the pandemic. Analysis released in March by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has shown that child poverty had been increasing for six years before the pandemic hit, with three quarters of children growing up in poverty being from a working family. That is because many people are being paid paltry national minimum wage levels. Where families get the London living wage, or the living wage outside of London, it increases the likelihood that they will be able to pay for nutritious food. The shadow Education Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), is right to say that feeding kids is not a half-time activity—a reference to Marcus Rashford.

What is also clear beyond any doubt is the wider and life-long impact of the poverty and deprivation faced by children eligible for free school meals. While these children will have support during school hours, for other parts of the week and throughout the year when they are not in school, they face going hungry and their attainment, health and prospects will suffer. As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on school food, my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), has shown in this House over a number of years, statistics have repeatedly shown that this has a serious impact on the rest of a child’s education, with far lower numbers of those on free school meals attending university, compared with their peers who are not.

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

The hon. Lady has outlined the fact that child poverty is rising, and has been rising for a number of years. In light of that, does she share my shock and disappointment that today at Prime Minister’s questions, the Prime Minister said that child poverty was falling, showing that he does not actually understand the scale of the problem, much less how to fix it?

[Catherine West]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I am not sure whether it is ignorance, or not wanting to tell the truth. All who have signed up to this debate know what our inboxes are showing, what our constituents tell us when they walk in the door, and we know that things are getting worse. One of the poor health outcomes is on people’s teeth. Research from the British Dental Association has shown that 11% of children in England have tooth decay by three years old, which rises to 23% by the time they are five and reaching school. Even though this is completely preventable, it continues to be the No. 1 reason why children aged five to nine are admitted to hospital in the UK. With a rise in free school-meal entitlement because of grinding levels of child poverty, this is no surprise.

Problems with teeth can have an impact on a child’s ability to sleep, concentrate in school or develop good speech and language skills. We need to take action and be bold in our approach through a less threadbare welfare system and a more generous system of school meals provision. We also know the importance of action before school, such as breakfast clubs. As a former council leader, I wanted to know which schools did not have a breakfast club so I could ask them to put one on. Not only do they help working families to have children in school on time and have an early start, they also show that where breakfast is of a high quality, it helps enormously with academic achievement and concentration. Teachers say that, with good nutrition, children’s behaviour is good right through into the afternoon. My hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock), who used to be a teacher, will confirm that. Likewise, after-school activities should provide healthy options because, for some children who are in school for many, many hours, this could be the only hot meal—at lunchtime and then in the afternoon—that they might have, so it is incredibly important.

Members in this House have championed the need to address school holiday hunger, and I hope that the national food strategy will focus the minds of Minsters on that, so that we address what is going to be a very long break this summer, with many people on really low incomes.

I will conclude soon, but I am sure the points that I have made are abundantly clear. In response to the very good debate earlier this week on a similar topic, I will make a short point. We do not want to make this particular topic very party political. We want everyone to pull together, but sadly when the Prime Minister mentions that child poverty is reducing, and we know that child poverty is not reducing, that is when it becomes political. When a footballer has to lead the charge because many MPs vote against children having nutritional food during the school holidays that is when it becomes something that really hits home, and something we must do something about.

In conclusion, this is the prescription for the levels of child poverty that we are seeing: first, to make the £20 universal credit uplift permanent; secondly, more help for families with fuel bills, water bills and council tax; thirdly, high-quality debt advice—too many households rely on buy now, pay later financial products, which quickly become unaffordable; fourthly, help with housing costs—too many families spend over a third of their income on expensive rent payments. Shelter, the charity that specialises in housing, recommends no more than 35%, but far too many families are spending way over 35% on housing payments, which does not leave enough to pay for food. Fifthly, childcare costs: if a family has two children in childcare, the cost is often more than rent, so that needs to be urgently addressed.

Britain’s children deserve better. We have the wealth in our society to deliver a better society for all our citizens. We need a Government with a heart to act. I implore the Minister to do her utmost to address this full-on. We must not sit on our hands; it cannot take any further debates or votes in Parliament. Do what is right. Work with us and implement the policies that we need to be a real and noticeable help to families.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

I am glad to be able to participate in today’s important debate about support for children in receipt of free school meals, and I thank the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) for securing it. What we are really talking about, of course, is child poverty, and only on Tuesday, we had quite a similar debate to the one we are having today. During that debate, I pointed out the chilling similarities between welfare arrangements as they are today and the kind of support that was offered to the poorest in society in the 1834 new Poor Law. I know that some people will scoff at that comparison, but I am willing to sit down with anybody and talk them through the similarities, which are striking.

As delighted as I am to see the Minister in her place, it is quite telling that when we have debates about child hunger and child poverty, no Minister from the Department for Work and Pensions is prepared to stand up and defend the policies of their own Department. Those watching, as well as those participating, will draw their own conclusions from that fact.

We know that for some children, the free school meal that they receive during the school day may be the only proper meal—the only hot meal—they will have on that particular day. We also know that only one third of children who claim free school meals achieve five or more good GCSE grades or equivalent, compared with two thirds of children whose families are in better circumstances. This is not surprising, given that underneath the free school meal figures is the more pernicious challenge of child poverty, which free school meals alone cannot even begin to address.

In Scotland, the SNP Government are expanding free school breakfasts and lunches to every primary school pupil and every child in state-funded special schools. That way, there is no stigma, and no child will fall through the net. Best Start food payments across Scotland are increasing to £4.50 a week, and eligibility will increase by about 50%, to all in receipt of universal credit.

There is a tale of two Governments here, because while the UK Government scrapped targets to reduce child poverty, the SNP Government in Scotland have set ambitious targets to work towards eradicating child poverty. The Scottish child payment of £10 a week per child for those on qualifying benefits will increase to £20 a week per child, assisting 450,000 children across Scotland, a measure that the Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland has paid tribute to.

Meanwhile, the UK Government’s mean-spiritedness is laid bare as they refuse to commit to retaining the £20 uplift in universal credit for the poorest families, and scrap targets to reduce child poverty while presiding over a rise in it, with a Prime Minister who—it gives me no pleasure to say this—does not even seem to be aware that child poverty is rising. That will not inspire confidence in my constituents in North Ayrshire and Arran, nor, I would imagine, in any other constituency.

While the SNP Scottish Government are doing all they can to tackle this social ill with all the limited powers that they have, 85% of control over welfare is reserved to the Westminster Government. That is where the real solutions can be found, if there is the political will to implement them. However, we know that the current welfare system does not fulfil its avowed aim. Apart from the fact that in the past year, the Trussell Trust delivered a food parcel every 2.5 minutes, if the goal of welfare is to support and assist those who are able to work to re-enter the job market, it seems that the system is not fulfilling that goal: otherwise, there would be no five-week wait for support. There would be no advance payments, which force those who eventually receive universal credit and are therefore living on, or beyond, the breadline to be deemed capable of paying back these advance payments, throwing claimants further and further into financial despair and further and further away from the job market.

I have said this to the Minister before, so it will not surprise her to hear me say it again: no reputable lender would lend money to somebody on universal credit, because they understand that they do not have the means to repay that loan. However, the DWP is quite happy to lend money to claimants in the full knowledge that their attempts to repay it will put them in deep financial distress. Why on earth would anyone design a system along those principles?

Even now, in 2021, we know about the disgrace of children in our communities going to school hungry. We know that free school meals are really important, but we also know that we need to do more to address the deep poverty too many children currently live in, and we know it goes well beyond the material. Most children living in poverty have at least one parent in work, and I wonder whether the Minister is at all disturbed by that.

Although we lack the political will in the Westminster Government, we also know that there are things we can do to address some of the really pernicious problems that are aggravating and fixing child poverty in a very stubborn way. We could replace advance payments, which are loans that people cannot pay back without real hardship. We could get rid of the five-week wait. We could also actually talk about a real living wage as opposed to the wee, pretendy living wage currently trumpeted by the UK Government.

I do not know whether anybody in this debate shares my shock and horror about the Prime Minister saying today in Prime Minister’s questions that child poverty is falling. One of the many reasons why that is so disturbing is that, only this week, the DWP released figures showing that 4.3 million children were living in relative poverty in the UK in 2019-20—an increase from 4.1 million in the previous year. That amounts to one in three children —31% of children—living in poverty. Those statistics predate the pandemic, so we know that the figures are even higher as we sit in this Chamber.

We also know of the serious impact that living in poverty has on children’s wellbeing. Disadvantaged children are four and a half times more likely to develop severe mental health problems by age 11 than their well-off peers. Children in poor housing are more at risk of respiratory illnesses and meningitis. Those in the most disadvantaged areas can expect 20 fewer years of good health than children in places with more resources and affluence. I wonder whether the Minister finds that as disturbing as I do.

We know there is a direct correlation between poverty and under-attainment at school, so if we do not tackle child poverty with every weapon in our armoury, we can forget tackling the attainment gap. As we have heard, school closures during the pandemic have hit the most deprived children hardest, and will undoubtedly widen an already worrying attainment gap, especially in the short term. I look forward to hearing what new and additional poverty measures the Minister thinks can be brought forward in view of the decisive impacts that poverty has on educational attainment.

Not tackling poverty is a significant cost to the state, so I hope that the Minister’s plans for preventive spending to tackle child poverty will be revealed to us today, because that would be the wisest and most humane course of action.