The fight for free school meals

Free school meals are back in the news. In January, footballer and children’s welfare campaigner Marcus Rashford called for a full review of school meals provision, stating: “It seems like we have taken steps forward, but in my mind, we’ve got a million miles still to go.”

Last year his petition to extend free school meals provision into the school holidays garnered 1.1 million signatures, prompting the government to reverse policy. It reignited the ever-simmering debate over free school meals, fuelled, latterly, by figures from the Joseph Rown-tree Foundation forecasting that, if the government ends as planned the current £20 top-up to universal credit, another 200,000 children will be plunged into poverty. This is in addition to the 550,000 children already living in poverty prior to Covid-19.

The roots