Three steps that would stop children going hungry | Letter

Three steps that would stop children going hungry | Letter

Andrew Forsey suggests reforms that would ensure fewer children’s lives are blighted by poverty and hunger

Even in the light of the latest rise in the proportion of children becoming eligible for free school meals, there are still hundreds of thousands of poorer children caught in the hunger trap (A quarter of state school pupils in England receiving free school meals, 6 June).

The best estimates suggest that about 200,000 eligible children are not registered to receive their free school meals. Moreover, even if full take-up was secured among those eligible, there are children whose parents work in care homes, coffee shops, clothing factories, police stations, sorting offices and schools, for example, with wages that are not high enough to lift the family out of poverty, but are deemed to be too high to qualify their children for free school meals – and the accompanying place at holiday activity and food (HAF) clubs.

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