The overwhelming majority of Londoners want the government to extend free school meals to more children across the country, new data shows.
Eight out of ten Londoners in almost every parliamentary constituency in the capital want free school meals to be given to children in households receiving Universal Credit.
Currently children are prevented from getting free school meals if their families earn more than £7,400 a year excluding benefits.
All primary school children in London will be given free school meals regardless of their family income from September after London Mayor Sadiq Khan announced the plan last week.
But the policy does not extend outside the capital.
The Standard’s School Hunger Special Investigation highlighted the plight of the 210,000 primary and secondary pupils in London who live in households on universal credit but missed out on free school meals because their household income, excluding benefits, was over the threshold of £7,400 a year.
A new survey by the Food Foundation found that eight out of ten Londoners in almost every parliamentary constituency in the capital want to see the government take action for children outside London.
The detailed polling also found overwhelming support for the expansion of access to Free School Meals in a raft of marginal parliamentary seats across the country.
In Rishi Sunak’s Richmond constituency in North Yorkshire, 76 per cent of people said they support the expansion of free school meals to all those on Universal Credit. In Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s constituency of Southwest Surrey the figure was 82 per cent.
Nationally 80 per cent of respondents said they support free school meals for children in households receiving Universal Credit, compared to 72 per cent when the survey was carried out in October last year.
It comes as separate data shows that the number of households where children cannot access enough nutritious food has nearly doubled in the past year. In January this year, 21.6 per cent of households with children reported that their children had directly experienced food insecurity in the past month, compared with 11.6 per cent in January last year.
Anna Taylor, the Food Foundation’s executive director said: “We have been tracking these trends for some time, and the levels of food insecurity among children continue to be terribly concerning, and point to big holes in the Government’s safety net.”
“These latest findings now show the public is overwhelmingly in favour of greater Government support for the millions of families suffering the worst effects of the cost-of-living crisis. By extending Free School Meals to more children in England in the next budget, the Government could deliver a policy change that is popular with voters, targeted and timely, and truly delivers on levelling up.”
