Chancellor Rachel Reeves has confirmed that from April, hundreds of primary school children across the nation, will receive free breakfasts. The plan, which is estimated to cost around £365million per year, is expected to save some parents more than £400 every year.
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00:00So if you go to school hungry, your ability to progress is going to be sort of dented.
00:07So the fact that there is this issue, and let's face it, child poverty is an ongoing
00:12issue, it's increasing.
00:15What would you say would be the most likely potential political challenges of expanding
00:21the free school meals across the whole of the UK?
00:24Probably requires a lot more sort of joined up thinking in terms of working with the supermarkets
00:28so that they get rid of surplus product and get in the right places.
00:32And I think that there could be a really great opportunity on so many fronts in terms of
00:36creating jobs to serve this food.
00:39And I think there's probably people who do it for free, which of course is even better.
00:43But nonetheless, it's getting the resources we do have and shifting around.
00:50There is also sort of a stigma attached to this that many proud parents don't want their
00:54children to be sort of, dare I say, stigmatized by the fact that they've been in receipt
00:59of school meals.
01:00So the solution would be, and of course I know it would come at sort of cost, but hey,
01:04this is the sort of the future generation who are going to create the economic wealth
01:07for all of us people who are getting old and eating well, because of course it's one thing
01:12to eat just anything, but of course eating sort of good food, it provides sort of long
01:17term sort of benefits in all sorts of ways.
01:19So this can't be beyond the wit of, as I say, the sort of current government, which of course
01:23has committed itself to sort of dealing with poverty.
01:26There are ways and means of doing, because of course we live in a sort of world of plenty,
01:30but of course, and there is so much sort of food wastage.
01:33And dare I say, if this food could be sort of then by obviously sort of directed means,
01:39of course, which would take resources and effort to sort of to put it into sort of schools
01:43in particular, and indeed to assist the families who of course can't afford to sort of feed
01:48all of their children.
01:50It's a big, big problem.
01:51And of course, it fits in with everything else that the government have inherited, of
01:55course, as a consequence of lots of things, including austerity.