Sadiq Khan pledges free meals during school holidays and weekends for low-income London pupils

Sadiq Khan has pledged £3.5 million to provide support to families over the next 12 months

(AFP via Getty Images)

Free meals will be provided during school holidays and at weekends to low-income Londoners struggling with the spiralling cost of living, the London mayor has announced.

Sadiq Khan has pledged £3.5 million as part of an emergency funding package and will work with charities to provide 10 million meals to families over the next 12 months, according to City Hall.

This funding will help children of all ages and their parents during the school holidays, with charities, schools and grassroots organisations helping to get them to those most in need through holiday food and activity schemes across the capital.

It marks a major victory for The Independent’s Feed the Future campaign, which called for free school meals to be extended to all schoolchildren in England – both primary and secondary – who live in households on universal credit but miss out on free school meals because their household income, excluding benefits, is over the threshold of £7,400 a year.

A new report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), published on Wednesday, found that seven in 10 children in England whose families are entitled to universal credit are not eligible for free school meals.

“The spiralling cost of living is hitting low-income Londoners particularly hard and it’s shocking so many people are struggling to put food on their table. I have repeatedly called on the government to do more to help those in need and support families during the school holidays, but they have not provided the assistance that is urgently needed,” the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said.

“I’m committed to doing all I can to support Londoners through this cost of living crisis and will continue to urge ministers to step forward and do the same as we build a more prosperous London for all.”

The London free holiday meals funding follows an announcement last month from the mayor to provide an emergency £130m to provide free school meals to primary school children in London due to the cost of living.

Recent polling by the Greater London Authority shows that half of Londoners are now either “financially struggling” or “just about managing”.

The Independent’s campaign, in which we partnered with a consortium of groups led by charity, The Food Foundation, highlighted the plight of the 800,000 children in poverty in England who are excluded from free school meals, and exposed how some hungry children were so desperate that they were stealing food from school canteens and supermarkets to eat.

The new funding announced on Wednesday includes £3.1m to the Mayor’s Fund for London and the Felix Project to expand their ready-made and cook-at-home meal provision during school holidays.

The Mayor’s Fund provides free healthy meals to low-income families and young people through more than 340 community partners and 80 hubs where food is provided alongside a range of school holiday activities, while the Felix Project delivers surplus food from a range of suppliers to nearly 1,000 charity organisations and schools that support those in need.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan (PA Archive)

It is estimated that around 6.9m additional meals will be provided from the new funding, with community partners targeting the areas of London most in need.

Around 210,000 pupils in London – across years 3 to 11 – live in households that rely on universal credit but miss out on free school meals, according to the Child Poverty Action Group, and around half of them are expected to be covered by the mayor’s scheme.

A further £425,000 is being provided to The Felix Project to expand its capacity, and allow it to deliver food on Saturdays, as well as during the week, throughout the whole year. This will enable around 100 new charitable organisations on their waiting list to be supplied with food, and help The Felix Project deliver an additional 20 tonnes of food every weekend, which will create around 2.5-3m meals over the next year.

Charlotte Hill OBE, CEO at The Felix Project said: “We know many parents are struggling to afford to put food on the table and rely on school food banks to top up their weekly shop, alongside free school meals for those who are eligible. When schools are closed families face increased costs and more stress trying to make sure they have enough to feed their children. That is why it is vital food provision continues during school holidays.”

Barbara Crowther, Children’s Food Campaign Co-ordinator at Sustain, said: “It’s a scandal that in our relatively wealthy country, increasing numbers of families with children still cannot access healthy and nutritious food each day.

“Whilst our food system is broken, schools and local community hubs across London are doing incredible work in providing a nutritional safety net, supported by organisations like the Felix Project and Mayor’s Fund for London.

“We must all keep calling for proper living wages and benefits set at a level that enables people to live with more dignity and afford nutritious food, as well as an end to the stigmatizing means testing of school meals, and healthy school food for every child every day.”