London is handing out free meals for all primary school children

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/20/economy/london-free-school-meals/index.html

by LinuxBender • 3 years ago

55 100 3 years ago

binarymax• 3 years ago

It’s programs like this that actually fill me with hope - that taxpayer money is used for something directly helpful to the people. I’d love to see similar progressive assistance enacted in more districts.

password8• 3 years ago

Completely short term. It's a band-aid at best.

PreachSoup• 3 years ago

It's just food, we have plenty of it. What's a long term and non band-aid solution to let children eat?

substation13• 3 years ago

If it is made into a permanent policy then it is long term.

lotsofpulp• 3 years ago

Ideally, it will be subject to accountability, and the service will not be outsourced to some cheap company employing the lowest quality labor serving the lowest quality food.

I have seen that, and I would like the government to specify that all schools need to have kitchens or a central kitchen staffed by people employed by the government.

credit_guy• 3 years ago

In New York City all kids in the public school system qualify for free meals. No questions asked. From Pre-K to 12th grade. I believe this has been going on since 2019. During Covid, since kids could not go to school, all kids (or rather their parents) received some debit cards that could be used to buy food.

paxys• 3 years ago

California has started this as well. Free breakfast and lunch to 100% of students in the state across all grades regardless of income or anything else (first state in the country to do so I believe). It's bizarre to me that this isn't already the standard. India has been successfully doing it for two decades now, and the program now covers 120 million children.

vr462• 3 years ago

I like Mayor Sadiq Khan, he's had an extremely hostile opposing government, one that's made him beg for funding for the public transport system and one that's changed the entire Mayoral electoral system from a fair-ish one to a very unfair one, and various policing crises that get laid at his door, so nice to see him using his business tax windfall to help school kids when the government won't.

Plus a pandemic.

Further context: yes, it's the mayoral elections this year.

Even further context: while some boroughs do offer blanket free meals, most don't and during the school holidays in the pandemic, many children were going without a decent meal as the goverment voted to not provide them. My partner and many others stepped up in our borough along with the local rugby club who made the meals to deliver to children and families in need.

_Wintermute• 3 years ago

yes, it's the mayoral elections this year.

Pretty sure it's not until mid 2024?

vr462• 3 years ago

Ah yes, I'm a year early, thanks for pointing it out.

cassianoleal• 3 years ago

May 2024. https://metro.co.uk/2023/02/20/when-is-the-next-london-mayor...

Edit: downvoted for sharing information. :facepalm:

ploppyploppy3• 3 years ago

I despise Khan.

Elite-accepted Populist with aggressive net-zero policies that are driving down low-income self-employed workers.

jmfldn3• 3 years ago

Londoner here. I think those from outside this city, let alone outside this country, would be amazed at the amount of working poor there are here, let alone non-working poor. Yes, it's a 'rich' city, it's also got a lot of the worst poverty in the UK too.

We are in a bad shape generally in the UK, a lot of this country is pretty behind other g8 nations these days on quite a few key development metrics.

altacc3• 3 years ago

I moved out of London about 15 years ago but continued to visit and work there and the difference in such a short amount of time is shocking. The income disparity and cost of living was bad when I lived there and seems to have gotten significantly worse each year. It's bad for Londoners and it's bad for London as it has a sterilising effect on London life and culture.

machiaweliczny2• 3 years ago

If I had too guess problems are due to assets inflation (foreign buyers) + hard Brexit instead of staying in trading union like Switzerland.

Gigachad• 3 years ago

I had some people visit from London and after seeing my average 2 bedroom apartment in Australia, acted like I must be some kind of multi billionaire. Uh, no, this is what the average person here can afford.

I can’t imagine how bad the standard of living in the Uk has got.

easytiger14• 3 years ago

There are "working poor" in London because benefit systems and uncontrolled immigration allow people with no means to have 3,4 children despite having existed without money to sustain themselves. I can provide a great many examples.

1 in 5 people in England were not born there and in central London boroughs around half (or more) of the populations of various boroughs live in social housing. The poverty you describe is not a result of government indifference to poverty, it's sustained and generated by policies designed to ease poverty.

Retric4• 3 years ago

1 in 5 people in England where born outside the country because the population is below replacement rate especially when you consider people leaving the UK.

You need a large percentage of the population to have 3-4 kids to be a sustainable country.

Earw0rm• 3 years ago

Uncontrolled immigration to the UK is a myth. If you've ever tried to get permanent residence for a non-EU citizen, you'd know just how controlled it is.

Granted, yes, we had little control over migration from the EU from 2004 to 2016. But very few of London's working poor are of Eastern European heritage - anyone from there who finds it too difficult here tends to head back.

Asylum seekers / "small boats" migrant numbers are absolutely tiny relative to the London population.

London does have a high % of first-generation immigrants - but most of them are now-elderly Caribbeans, South Asians, Mediterraneans, West Africans who came over in the 60s and 70s. Outside of a few areas, non-Anglo-looking people in their 30s and under were overwhelmingly born here.

ClumsyPilot3• 3 years ago

Jaywick, 97% White, 95% Born in Uk [1]. The most deprived area in England

Search "10 poorest towns in England". There will be no immigrants anywhere. Search "most deprived areas in Europe" and half of them are in Britain. [2] May I remind you that EU also contains Romania and Poland?

Have you looked at GDP per capita of cities? Once you remove London/Oxford/Cambridge, the country is so poor.

Second biggest city in UK is Birmingham, has GDP per capita $30,000. Second biggest city in Germany is Hamburg, has GDP per capita $85,000

You have to compare most of Britain to corrupt, post soviet countries to find comparable standard of living:

Take Prague, Czech republic, GDP PP is $57,000, Double of Birmingham.

So you go to Warsaw, Poland, it was completely destroyed in the war, is really corrupt, still has higher GDP than Birmingham, $32,000.

North & East Ayrshire has GDP €16,200. You might as well live in Siberia! Yakutia has GDP of $18,000 [5]

The poverty you describe is... sustained and generated by policies designed to ease poverty.

Yes, I guess you could pursue the plan of starving poor to death, do a rerun of Ireland 1850's

London is fucked because housing. Housing in London is fucked because most of UK provides living standards of Poland.

References: 1- https://www.citypopulation.de/en/uk/eastofengland/essex/E340... 2 - https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/cornwall-sec...

5 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_subjects_of_Ru...

vidarh6• 3 years ago

UK birth rates are far below replacement. The UK would face economic collapse without significant immigration.

tin7in• 3 years ago

There is a labor shortage in the UK and unemployment is the lowest in 40 years, so all those people should be able to find jobs.

At the same time a job at Pret pays £20k / year and you can’t really find a room in London for less than £700 / month.

nixlim8• 3 years ago

So, I came to the UK when I was 15, studied for over 10 years, got my citizenship. All legal, privately paid for. Incidentally, I worked as a solicitor for over 10 years, large part of my work was immigration law. There is no such thing as "uncontrolled" immigration outside the EU. When we were within the EU, we __chose__ not to enforce the rules. The arguments about it being non-practical (which is what Home Office told MPs select committee) are rubbish - Sweden, Denmark and Netherlands do so successfully from my personal experience. We could have done that too, __if we wanted to__. We just weren't bothered until the rise of UKIP.

Now about being poor. It took me 13 years, 4 of which working in Saudi Arabia, and a career change into software engineering, to make enough money to pay off my debts from school and start earning enough to live on without worrying about the next bill and looking after my wife and kids. Most immigrants I know do work hard. There is also a large swathe of people (immigrants and natives) who for variety of reasons rely on the welfare state. I do agree that welfare state should be downsized significantly. The reality, perhaps surprisingly, is that such a downsizing will hit the natives the most.

altacc3• 3 years ago

This is politics, so not really HN content, but it is great news and should be nation wide and more common across the globe.

Studies, including the UK government's own study (from the last government) showed that there was significant improvement in attainment for pupils from lower income backgrounds and also general health improvements. For about £400 per pupil per year you can create significant benefits for children and therefore future adults.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/... https://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/0...

easytiger14• 3 years ago

Aren't you concerned that there are people having children who refuse to feed them?

For about £400 per pupil per year you can create significant benefits for children and therefore future adults

Parents used to feed their children when I grew up. What's changed? And if that's the case why is childhood obesity soaring in the same areas that so desperately need money to feed children?

There are over 10million school age children. So your very conservative estimate of £400 is £4bn that has to be found year on year.

oarsinsync• 3 years ago

Parents used to feed their children when I grew up. What's changed? And if that's the case why is childhood obesity soaring in the same areas that so desperately need money to feed children?

Fast food is now a fraction of the cost of healthy food.

Cost of living has been steadily increasing (and more recently, more suddenly increasing) while wages have remained stagnant. Home ownership rates have declined, resulting in more people paying to keep a roof over their head instead of investing in their own future equity. Instead of having any security to support their families, they’re paying significant %s more in prepay utility services.

lm284692• 3 years ago

Parents used to feed their children when I grew up. What's changed?

Nothing, you probably just lived in your bubble. Kids have a very narrow view of what reality is

Poverty has been linked to obesity for a while now, feel free to google it. It's a form of malnutrition, not a form of food abundance, poverty doesn't mean you can't buy food, it means you probably are more prone to looking for a quick feel good food because the rest of your existence isn't very fulfilling, it means you probably don't have a fully equipped kitchen, it means you can't afford fresh food, it means you're more likely to buy processed food of dubious nutritional value, &c.

£4bn that has to be found year on year.

That's not even 10% of your military budget. Building a strong and healthy population should be high on the list of priorities, the saving in term of public health would more than pay for it

denton-scratch5• 3 years ago

This isn't about "school-age" children; it's about primary pupils. That's under-11s. We're not talking about feeding hulking 17-year-olds.

nindalf• 3 years ago

People browsing this thread finding appalling comments - it’s not a pattern, it’s just this one person.

altacc3• 3 years ago

It would be much better if everyone had a better income and work/life balance in order to be able to feed, house, clothe and raise their children well but that is not the reality of the situation or where the current political and economics climate in the UK is leading, it is quite the opposite.

I know people who work full time and yet can only afford to have their heating on for 1 or 2 hours a day in winter and have a very tight budget for groceries. There are people who have to choose between heating and eating. Ensuring that children eat at least one good meal a day is an easier & quicker fix than the systemic and governmental change that the UK needs to solve this problem the other way.

pigtailgirl• 3 years ago

-- in uk school lunch is not free? - this is typical lunch every school child in Korea provided free daily - thought this was usual in developed countries? --

https://imgur.com/a/8KECVAp

christkv• 3 years ago

Where do I sign up that looks delicious.

yamtaddle• 3 years ago

A lot of countries seem to manage to provide really good school lunches. Totally unlike, say, the US, where it's usually crap and has gradually been getting worse.

I think it all but requires some existing, quality-valuing food culture. Try to serve good lunches to kids here and you'd have all the parents crying about how their kids "can't" eat that and need an Uncrustable and chocolate milk instead or whatever.

cameronh90• 3 years ago

We used to have free milk, but Thatcher got rid of that (Thatcher, Thatcher, milk snatcher).

One challenge in the UK, especially somewhere like London, is we have a fair amount of diversity in food choices.

Providing nutritious, tasty meals on a very limited budget with options for vegan, vegetarian, kosher, halal, gluten free and other diets can be a challenge for schools, and many primary schools are quite small without cooking facilities. When I was young, it was normal in primary to bring a "packed lunch" from home, usually a sandwich and crisps. The standard UK lunch as an adult is still a sandwich for most people. The move towards free cooked school meals has been suggested because turns out that many don't have access to a daily healthy cooked meal at home.

jacooper2• 3 years ago

BTW kosher = halal, both have almost the same requirements.

anon7725• 3 years ago

I went to school in the 80’s and 90’s in Canada (suburbs of Toronto) and school lunch was not free. The primary school did not have facilities to prepare lunch, and high school had a pay-as-you-go cafeteria. I don’t know if things have changed.

nicbou• 3 years ago

Same in the suburbs of Quebec.

However we had decently cheap lunch, and above all even cheaper breakfast provided by the Petits Déjeuners, for which I am very grateful.

I only realised later that my parents struggled at times, and that those were lifesavers for them.

denton-scratch5• 3 years ago

The primary school did not have facilities to prepare lunch

The normal response to that is to use a contract or municipal service to bring in hot food. It's usually municipal.

petercooper• 3 years ago

Around 20% of kids get school meals for free whether it's being under a certain age or in a household under a certain income, but in most cases, no, school lunches aren't free. As a parent, I am aware that some kids, mostly in secondary education, will buy snacks for their friends or share their lunch with them if they can't afford it every day.

Minor49er• 3 years ago

Hopefully this does what is intended. Similar programs in the States generate huge amounts of waste because the food must be provided for all students who qualify, yet a large portion does not get eaten and gets thrown away. At least this is the case in my local district

denton-scratch5• 3 years ago

I was impressed by this announcement. It was accompanied by reports of:

* Teachers bringing in packed lunches for pupils who routinely arrived at school with none

* Pupils pretending to have a packed lunch, because they didn't want to be stigmatized as poor because they got a free school meal

You can't learn if you're hungry. Teachers can't teach if there's even a few hungry pupils in the class; they become disruptive. If everybody's fed, then everybody wins.

The bureaucracy around means-tested benefits is itself costly; in some cases, it costs more than the marginal cost of making the benefit universal. These people are not "scroungers" - they're children under 8. It's common sense.

nixlim8• 3 years ago

Primary school here is until 12 (Year 6)

denton-scratch5• 3 years ago

Yeah, I checked that after posting; I was wrong. Thanks!

machiaweliczny2• 3 years ago

Good to see some sane development. In no rich country should kids go hungry. We in Poland have 500PLN/month ($250 PPP) per kid and that’s very good program in my opinion. Free meals in schools were always there for poor kids but IMO it’s always rewards people who hide their income and disincentivises work so I like this universal approach better. I think we currently have dollar-for-dollar support, if you get some income you get less support which fixes some of issues with hard support line.

nemo44x• 3 years ago

It’s amazing to me how mismanaged “the church” has been the last 60 or so years. This is the kind of thing they owned (feed poor people) for centuries as it legitimized their influence. You still see it in many parts of the world. It’s as if they became more obsessed with their own internal affairs and politics they didn’t bother to notice that a political wing was subverting them by taking their job. It’s no coincidence we see so much moralizing and other quasi-religious posture from them. They’ve been better managed then and have eaten the church’s lunch.

ClumsyPilot3• 3 years ago

I am an immigrant to Britain, and I am sad for Britain, and I am said about moving to Britain. It is really hard to describe.

before I moved to Britain I thought it's a rich country, but actually it's a poor country with one rich city (London + Oxford/Cambridge)

GDP of London is $66,000. Second biggest city in UK is Birmingham, has GDP per capita $30,000. I have wasted 10 years in that god-forsaken place. Birmingham is not unique, Manchester, Glasgow, and other big cities are withing ~15% error margin.

Second biggest city in Germany is Hamburg, has GDP per capita $85,000. To find a city in Germany that is as poor as Birmingham, you have to go to the 4th poorest city, Oberhausen [1], population 200K, rank 59 by size and rank 104 by GDP.

UK even loses comparison to post-soviet countries - Prague, Czech republic, GDP PP is $57,000, Double of Birmingham. Bratislava, Slovatia - $45,000. Warsaw, Poland - $32,000

And that's average. Then there are some truly god-forsaken places like North & East Ayrshire, has GDP €16,200. I don't even know how that's possible, Yakutia, Siberia has GDP of $18,000

Brexit vote was about stopping immigrants from getting in, British people do not realise they should be the ones getting out. You could hand an average non-london Britton a ticket to a random European capital their standard of living would improve.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_cities_by_GDP#:...

jacooper2• 3 years ago

It sounds you moved out, if so where to?

ploppyploppy3• 3 years ago

You speak of my country with disgust and it offends me.

You know what's kept those wages outside London so low?

ClumsyPilot3• 3 years ago

I am sorry if any of it came across as disguist.

I am feeling very compassionate to people that have suffered tremendous economic mismanagement.

I have seen people get offended at the suggestion that maybe some 'lesser' fountries are doing better, and we can learn from them. Even compairing Britain to Poland was disrespectfull to them.

You know what's kept those wages outside London so low?

My guess would be, lowest public investment in the regions in OECD?

https://www.tuc.org.uk/news/uk-near-bottom-oecd-rankings-nat...

Also 'native' white British poor people get treated like crap?

Look at british TV shows - Benefit Street, Villabising poor people. Or how much educational outcomes are 70% predicted by parents income.

chrisntb• 3 years ago

I lived for several years in Cambridge and then several years in Manchester and then several years in Glasgow and then several years in London and then several years in Oxford and then several years in ... Each city was the best time in my life, including ... :)

London is handing out free meals for all primary school children

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