Our campaign to get Central Bedfordshire Council appears to be gaining some attention which is great. They have seemingly backed down under pressure from all angles, and announced that the Free School meal voucher scheme is being extended to include this half term. The fact that this was announced in a press release on Sunday afternoon tells you that there has been a bit of a panic. It is excellent news of course, but the fight is not over. This scheme does not cover the Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 children who all get free school meals. Now many of those will be in a position to afford to eat at home. After all, we estimate that around 12% of children in Central Bedfordshire are entitled to free school meals. However, this does not tell the full story. COVID has hit many families very hard. Many of those kids who are entitled to free school meals usually will be in a parlous position due to huge gaps in funding and support. The free School meals campaign needs to include families who are working too, but who have suffered catastrophic losses to their income or businesses. We have the money. The government have spent less than half to support families than they did on the Banking crisis bailout. Local councils have been provided the funds to support those in need, but many of them are rather reticent on providing evidence of how and who they have supported. None of this matters though….If there is a hungry child, then we have failed. It is as simple as that. There are two things I suggest everybody read….the first is a facebook post from someone called Lucy Wood
Lucy Wood
23 hrs ·
When I was a child my Mum spent all her money on alcohol. She left me home alone for hours often with empty cupboards. Once I was so hungry, I mixed everything I could find in the kitchen in a big pot and ate it. I was sick for a week.
I would turn up on peoples doorsteps that I knew in the area and ask for food. I was taken in by an old man named John who would feed me and I would often be sitting on my aunts doorstep when she came home from work. One such evening my aunt lost her temper, walked me to the pub my Mum was in, pulled her out and they started fighting outside the pub. Despite all the traumatic childhood memories I have, that one is so vivid. I was so desperate to stop that fight. I was six years old.
According to some small minded people, I deserved to starve as a child because my Mum shouldn't have given birth to me. I quite agree, I wish she hadn't, my childhood was a living nightmare but it was peoples kindness that got me through it. I dread to think how I would have turned out if it wasn't for the kindness of strangers, my aunt/my rock and moving in with my Dad when I was 10, saved me.
Don't be so quick to condemn vulnerable children to starvation, they should never be punished because of the actions of their parents. The Tories are scum because they have the power to offer kindness and a decent meal to children in need but they have chosen not to. All whilst they burgle the public purse to keep their cronies bank balances fat.
The second recommended read is a book by Kerry Hudson called “Lowborn”, which tells the tale of Kerry’s upbringing in poverty.
We are headed into another pandemic, that of poverty.
An estimated 14.3 million people are in poverty in the UK
8.3 million are working-age adults, 4.6 million are children, and 1.3 million are of pension age
Around 22% of people are in poverty, and 34% of children are
Just under half (49%) of those in poverty are in “persistent poverty” (people who would also have fallen below the poverty line in at least two of the last three years). This is as of 2016/17
Working-age people in poverty are increasingly likely to be in working families
Most poverty rates aren’t all that different to what they were at the start of the 2000s. The most marked reduction has been in pensioner poverty, it is almost half as common as it was back in 2000, while rates for working-age adults are now slightly higher
Poverty rates fell in the years after 2010, as the UK recovered from the financial crisis, but are now showing clear signs of rising again
For full information on the above figures and more click here