All children across the UK should get free school meals, according to a coalition of campaigners who say food should be available in the same way as books, desks and chairs.
More than 40 organisations, unions, councils, politicians and other figures including Henry Dimbleby, co-founder of Leon restaurants and author of the School Food Plan, have joined the call on International School Meals Day.
Campaigners said political parties must remove the “stigmatising” means testing of children for food in school, and deliver healthy school food for all children – in both primary and secondary schools – by 2030.
It follows an announcement last month by the mayor of London Sadiq Khan of an emergency £130 million scheme to extend free school meals to every primary school pupil in the capital for one year, starting in September, in an effort to help struggling households amid the cost-of-living crisis.
