The Government is facing a backlash from parents after controversial changes to benefits which could cause as many as one million children lose their free school meals.
Under the new legalisation, English families on universal credit will have their income threshold for free school meals slashed to £7,400 a year.
The cuts mean around 212,000 children in London stand to go hungry, 130,000 in the West Midlands and another 130,000 in the North West.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Sam Royston of the Children's Society writes in The Guardian that the total number of children who lose out could be as high as one million, the majority from working class families.
Once a family with one child passes the £7,400 mark, it will need to earn an extra £1,000 a year, working 2.4 hours more each week at the national living wage, to cover the cost, he says.
Royston also cites research which found “loss of free school meals is a major disincentive to work, with six out of 10 parents admitting it has an impact on their decision to move into work or take on additional hours”.
Changes to free school meals, which had been in the Conservative election manifesto, were quietly dropped after the election, but now the party has been accused of trying to bring them in by the back door.
One area of Britain which seems to be protected from free school meal cuts is Northern Ireland, where the Government has just taken direct control of budgets and where the same threshold for eligibility will be nearly double the rest of the country, at £14,000.
HuffPost UK says this has led to “fresh criticism” of Theresa May’s alliance with the DUP and prompted claims the Government is seeking to “buy” support for its legislative programme.
“The Government’s inconsistency in applying the Universal Credit cut highlights a lack of real vision at the heart of our leaders’ policy,” says Evolve Politics.
“In order to get the requisite amount of votes for a deeply unpopular policy, they are reduced to exempting Northern Ireland from the fallout of that policy so that the DUP can vote it through for other areas. The perverseness is astounding,” adds the news site.
A last-minute series of votes tabled by Labour aimed at blocking changes to universal credit benefit thresholds and mitigating the effects of the cuts was defeated yesterday.
Whatever the economic rationale behind the move, it never looks good for the party in power to be seen to be taking food away from children – as Margaret “milk snatcher” Thatcher found out in 1970.
-
Political cartoons for December 6Cartoons Saturday’s political cartoons include a pardon for Hernandez, word of the year, and more
-
Pakistan: Trump’s ‘favourite field marshal’ takes chargeIn the Spotlight Asim Munir’s control over all three branches of Pakistan’s military gives him ‘sweeping powers’ – and almost unlimited freedom to use them
-
Codeword: December 6, 2025The daily codeword puzzle from The Week
-
‘These accounts clearly are designed as a capitalist alternative’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Is a Reform-Tory pact becoming more likely?Today’s Big Question Nigel Farage’s party is ahead in the polls but still falls well short of a Commons majority, while Conservatives are still losing MPs to Reform
-
The launch of Your Party: how it could workThe Explainer Despite landmark decisions made over the party’s makeup at their first conference, core frustrations are ‘likely to only intensify in the near-future’
-
What does the fall in net migration mean for the UK?Today’s Big Question With Labour and the Tories trying to ‘claim credit’ for lower figures, the ‘underlying picture is far less clear-cut’
-
‘Every teacher is a literacy teacher’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Will the public buy Rachel Reeves’s tax rises?Today’s Big Question The Chancellor refused to rule out tax increases in her televised address, and is set to reverse pledges made in the election manifesto
-
‘Congratulations on your house, but maybe try a greyhound instead’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Five takeaways from Plaid Cymru’s historic Caerphilly by-election winThe Explainer The ‘big beasts’ were ‘humbled’ but there was disappointment for second-placed Reform too
