Commenting on a Barnardo’s survey showing that a growing proportion of parents have struggled to provide sufficient food for their children over the past year because of a higher cost of living, Daniel Kebede, General Secretary of the National Education Union, said:
“It is a tragedy that in a country that has so much wealth, children still cannot get the nutrition they need. Our members see this every school day. 80% of teachers tell us they are regularly feeding pupils out of their own pockets, as children can’t access a healthy lunch to support their learning. That’s why we’re calling on the Government to invest in the next generation with free school meals for all.
“To address the causes of this poverty, change is needed outside of school. We urge the government to scrap the two-child limit. Every day that the Government refuses this ask, it is choosing to trap hundreds of thousands of children in poverty. Scrapping the two-child limit would immediately lift 300,000 children out of poverty and mean 700,000 children are in less deep poverty.”