The government has changed its mind on providing free school meals to children in England during the Christmas holidays.

It comes after the ongoing campaign by Manchester United’s Marcus Rashford. Henry Dimbleby had also criticised the UK Government on not extending the free meal voucher scheme fearing that disadvantaged children would go hungry as Covid-19 pushes more families into poverty.

The Food Foundation report in September 2020 (survey of 2,300 people) revealed that 1 in 7 families, 4 million people, have experienced food insecurity since March when the UK first went into lockdown. It also showed that:

• one million children were eating less healthy, lower cost foods
• 900,000 were not having balanced meals
• 400,000 were not eating enough
• 400,000 were completely skipping meals

Dimbleby called upon the Government to address the problem by spending £1.2 million and sent a plan outlining three key recommendations:

1. Increase value of Healthy Start vouchers to £4.25 a week and for the scheme to be extended to pregnant women and households with children under 4 where the parent/guardian in the household receives Universal Credit or equivalent benefit.
2. Extend the Holiday Activity and Food Programme to all areas in England.
3. Eligibility of the Free School Meals Scheme to include children up to age 16 from a household where parent/guardian is in receipt of Universal Credit or equivalent benefit.

The Prime Minister later announced £170 million of extra funding which will pay for the Covid Winter Grant Scheme to support families over the festive season, while the Holiday Activities and Food programme will be extended to cover next year’s Easter, summer and Christmas breaks. Expectant mothers and those on low incomes with young children, will see their benefits payments to buy fresh fruit and vegetables grow from £3.10 to £4.25 a week from April, after the Healthy Start payments were boosted.

You can read more about the Winter support package here