UK: Should all primary school children receive free school meals?
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.