As pupils return to school after the summer holidays, Kim Johnson MP will be asking the government to take up her demand for the universal roll out of free school meals in a first test for the new Prime Minister.
An adjournment debate on Free School Meals and tackling child poverty is scheduled to take place on Thursday, September 8. Ms Johnson will call for an agreement to the immediate roll out of free school meals to all primary school children, with a full roll out to be adopted as part of the emergency support package the new Prime Minister is expected to deliver before the October spending review.
The Liverpool Riverside MP joins calls from the National Education Union, the End Child Poverty Coalition, the Food Foundation, the Child Poverty Action Group and many others to radically extend free school meals to combat rising food insecurity, child poverty and education inequalities. In a blog by Alysa Remtulla, Head of Policy and Campaigns for the Magic breakfast fuel for learning it states: Classroom hunger drives the education attainment gap between children from disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers, leaving poorer children over 18 months behind their better off peers by the time they leave secondary school.
