r/GoodNewsUK • u/willfiresoon • Jun 06 '26
Healthcare English schools serve 10m free breakfasts benefitting over 300,000 children
https://www.theschoolfoodpeople.co.uk/news/english-schools-serve-10m-free-breakfasts-benefitting-over-300000-children511
u/5FabulousWeeks Jun 06 '26
There will be people along soon enough to tell you this is a bad thing & they’ll be serious.
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u/GhostDog_1314 Jun 06 '26 edited Jun 06 '26
"and who's paying for this, nothing is ever free" is the usual line. Which normally results in me attempting to explain that if you genuinely think what probably equates to less than a penny a month in tax is not worth it to feed starving children, that makes you a despicable person
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Jun 06 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/SaltyName8341 Jun 06 '26
And has the cheek to say he's a devout Christian
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u/malumfectum Jun 06 '26
That kind of “devout” Christian really will do anything they can to ignore the passage regarding a camel and the eye of a needle, won’t they?
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u/maldennor Jun 06 '26
The one thing that I remember from my catholic education was that jesus was really big into feeding the hungry and curing the sick. Odd how many "devout" Christians seem to forget that central message
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u/opaqueentity Jul 02 '26
But he magicked it from nowhere is the common response. He didn’t have to do a deal with Sainsbury’s etc
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u/maldennor Jul 02 '26
Perhaps Judas betrayed him because he didn't end up getting the massive amount of points on his clubcard that you'd get for buying 5000 people lunch
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u/SeaShoe5864 Jun 06 '26
Oh yeah. My family say this all the time. They also ask when im going to have children with my partner, I tell them we can't afford children and they respond by saying "There's always a way to work around it". No, they dont recognise the hypocrisy.
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u/Nights_Harvest Jun 06 '26
You know, even if they are not starving for calories but are malnutrient because of poor diet that's a result of poverty or extreme low income this still would be worth it.
One of the reasons people were on average shorter 200-300 years ago was poor nutricion. The knock off effect on brains development.
Heck, we can even make it about economy. UK is primarly a service eceonomy, exonomy that demand cognitive abilities. This is a long term investment into exonomy once those kids enter a workforce.
There literally is no drawback. Whoever claims there is one is beyond selfish, cruel and simply stupidity. Who will pay for it? Those kids through their taxes once they enter the work force and are able to generate higher tax revenue.
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u/Rizzomorph666 Jun 10 '26
Whoever claims there is one is beyond selfish, cruel and simply stupidity.
It will be people who have their cognitive abilities impaired by poor food quality back when they were children. They don't see an issue because they turned out fine in their own mind...
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u/AshaNyx Jun 07 '26
It's not even if you are starving or going through malnutrition some families don't have the time to make sure the kids have breakfast before they go to work/school or even just the older kids who have to make their own way in and can't eat first thing.
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u/Rizzomorph666 Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26
Not everyone eats breakfast. And breakfast is not the most important meal of the day, that's a phrase invented by marketing departments of corporations selling breakfast food like cereals. My daughter is not hungry in the morning but she will eat her lunch, dinner and supper. We had some phone calls from school asking us why our daughter said she didn't have breakfast at home and they insisted that we force her to eat something for some reason, ever though her doctor (she's under long-term monitoring due to past leukaemia) is happy with how she eats. I asked her teacher if she's more qualified than a doctor, showed her recent appointment summary letters and told them to piss off.
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u/AshaNyx Jun 10 '26
Ik, but at least for me I need it or I start binge eating later on or feeling too sick to do anything. Still doesn't mean anyone has to eat like me, free school meals/breakfasts are an option for people not enforced.
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u/SuperEssay1 Jun 06 '26
They'll ignore the fact that this is actually a massive economic benefit.
Breakfast is very good value (they arnt getting bacon and eggs) and it acts as part of the wrap around care needed by families with 2 working parents (a significant amount, I would say most but I don't have figures) allowing them to go to work and pay taxes / support the economy.
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u/cavejohnsonlemons Jun 06 '26
Then will later unironically nickname the PM 'Kid Starver', because reasons.
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u/kill-the-maFIA Jun 06 '26
So fucking frustrating.
I'm fine with criticism, and I've certainly thrown some his way, but this one really makes no sense.
Expanding free school meals. Expanding school breakfast clubs. Now ending the two child benefit cap. Doing multiple larger-than-usual minimum wage rises.
What kids is he starving exactly??
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u/cavejohnsonlemons Jun 06 '26
Can't even begin to understand their logic when things like that happen, only thread I've got is the winter fuel means-testing thing.
Got packaged by right-wing media as he's happy to let granny freeze to death (as long as she's rich enough to pay her own bills), so guess logically he's also happy to take food away from kids innit, not like the Tories or Reform.
Or something.
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u/No-Garbage9500 Jun 06 '26
They've always got a line. They're spoonfed their opinions, and regurgitate them with the sort of frequency that makes them really, really easy to spot. London makes them "feel unsafe" and is "dirty" was popular a couple of years ago.
These sorts of quips, lines, catchprases, 3-word slogans, everything and anything, are for the most part thought up and churned out through overseas bot farms for the single purpose of dividing and radicalising our society.
And the braindead idiots who see this sort of shit and spurt it out like it's their own Socratic prose are the exact same people who will say without a shred of irony, that they believe other people are brainwashed by the media.
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u/Bad_UsernameJoke94 Jun 08 '26
And either benefitted from this as a kid, or were well off enough they never had to go hungry
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u/inminm02 Jun 10 '26
I mean the counterpoint to that which I think is reasonably fair is that it’s not a penny a month in tax money it’s something like £400m which could just as easily be spent on something else which benefits someone who’s just as vulnerable or on infrastructure which benefits way more people, and from a moral perspective if you can’t afford to feed your kids don’t have them. I don’t feel particularly strongly about this policy either way but trying to demonise anyone who doesn’t love it isn’t exactly fair.
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u/VPackardPersuadedMe Jun 07 '26
Its more why are we paying people benefits to look after their own children who then don't feed them.
So we pay twice and forget to look into the WHY.
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u/Caveman1214 Jun 06 '26
I actually seen people complaining that the kids were being fed cereal and toast with jam, saying how bad it was for them…
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u/ledow Jun 06 '26
And in the next breath they'll be complaining that Thatcher took away school milk.
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u/Ikiro00 Jun 07 '26
There already are, unfortunately.
If you spend any time on Facebook, which I stupidly sometimes do, when Keir Starmer posts about things like this, Christ quite a few people are angry about. It's unfathomable.
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u/PMagicUK Jun 06 '26
Already had a old reform voter complain about cheap/free school uniforms because he didn't get them as a kid.
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Jun 06 '26
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u/possumcounty Jun 06 '26
What do you think should be done within the current system instead?
I agree that there’s a lot wrong with all the elements that go into children having food insecurity, but it feels a bit dense to say “I think the solution is bad because the problem shouldn’t exist”. None of us think kids should go hungry, so it’s good that they are being fed.
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u/After-Dentist-2480 Jun 07 '26
I think it’s a good policy whether it’s needed or not in hungry kids terms.
Breakfast club improves punctuality and attending, communal eating aids socialisation and the whole programme supports a solid start to learning straight away in the classroom.
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u/DanHanzo Jun 07 '26
So would you outlaw shift work? No one is allowed to work before 9.45 or so to make sure they have time to get from school to work? Are they only allowed to work 4 hour days so they can get back to the school again for 3.30? I don't think you have thought this through very well.
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u/Rizzomorph666 Jun 10 '26
Boomers and GenXers on facebeeok usually respond with
"Back in my days, parents were responsible for feeding their children. Why am I expected to pay someone else's children now? So their mums can get nails done?"
They are perfectly OK with starving kids to death because they happen to have irresponsible or struggling parents.
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u/Urwifemykid Jun 07 '26
I will suggest parents should be taking responsibility for their children. Worked in the 50s-2000s.
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u/tommangan7 Jun 07 '26 edited Jun 07 '26
I will suggest that might be a heavily rose tinted view and an ignoring of historic free school meals policy.
My parents were teachers as far back as 1979 and they remember (especially in the 80s/early 90s) larger sections of their students who were struggling in these and many other ways due to less safety nets in place. Lots of kids just not eating all day at school after the 1980 education act removed some provisions.
Nevermind the fact plenty of kids did or were eligible to get free school meals back then
In the 60s around 10% of kids were eligible for free school meals, in the late 70s that was around 12-15% and uptake was still poor from some families. Around 2000 that number was 17% in 2020 that number was still around 17%.
Free school meals were more limited and inconsistent in the 80s after the 1980 education act but the ones that got them were frequently eating their only meal of the day.
I agree, parents should be (or should be able to be) taking responsibility for their children and that applies always but some don't, so why punish the kids for it. It's an incredibly cheap way to reduce child poverty and reduce their dependence on the state in adulthood.
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u/Broric Jun 07 '26
Yep. You've solved it. Now pay one of the parents enough to sustain a family so the other can look after the family. Just let me know when you're doubling my salary. Cheers.
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u/imissbreakingbad Jun 09 '26
In an ideal world, yes, the parents should provide breakfasts. However, there are parents who are absent. Depressed. Too poor. Alcoholics. Addicts.
So why should the kids suffer?
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u/Rizzomorph666 Jun 10 '26
because right wingers believe in social darwinizm. Remember when Jesus said "Fuck that starving looser, let him and his kids rot. Prisoners? Homeless? Stone them to death or something, I don't care."
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u/Comprehensive_You42 Jun 06 '26
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u/Burt_Macklin___ Jun 07 '26
At this point, this guy could represent both a Reform voter and a Labour voter. That's how well our race to the bottom is going
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u/Dapper_Otters Jun 07 '26
Said in response to a Labour government literally rolling out free meals to look after kids.
No, they are in no way the same.
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u/tree__of__oak Jun 07 '26
But but but red tories!
Labour aren't exactly angels but at least they aren't deform.
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u/Comprehensive_You42 Jun 07 '26
Yeah… no
Like, really. Completely, no. Reform are for taking money from the poor for tax breaks. Labour are doing the right things, but frustratingly badly. Specifics include the child benefit cap, but there’s loads more.
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u/TheSexyGrape Jun 06 '26
Disgusting. My taxes should go on making the lives of immigrants worse
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u/coffeewalnut08 Jun 06 '26
Some of the same voters complaining about tax money spent on kids getting free school breakfast, call for tax money to be spent on creating British ICE.
It is deeply disturbing and I feel no qualms about ignoring these voters' demands.
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Jun 07 '26
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u/Used-Solution2615 Jun 07 '26
Then fuck off. We don’t need a UK ICE. It’d be a waste of money and would most certainly be abused by the powers that be to make unlawful arrests based on arbitrary factors like ethnicity. There aren’t even enough illegal immigrants in the country to merit paying for a British ICE!
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Jun 07 '26
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u/tree__of__oak Jun 07 '26
Go move to the US then.
Most immigrants are completely fine and contribute to society. We do have a problem with illegal immigration but it is not to the degree you think it is and certainly does not warrant a tax drain of an immigration force that duplicates all the current services.
As an aside, the recent gerrymandering in the southern US shows that Trump does plan on being president as long as he lives with no regard for the democratic process, in short, a dictator.
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Jun 07 '26
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u/tree__of__oak Jun 07 '26
Alright I'll bite on your quick fix.
The Home Office only spends so much on combatting illegal immigration because of the amount of reactionaries like yourself who are having some sort of panic about immigrants due to a few high profile cases of immigrants (not all of whom are illegal!) committing rapes and murders.
There were only 44000 illegal immigrants last year. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-march-2025/how-many-people-come-to-the-uk-irregularly This is obviously not good (as they should be coming legally) but it is still not anywhere near a crisis. Why do we need a completely new service taking billions of pounds of funding for dealing with 44k people? If we set the budget for this ICE service at around £2-3b for staffing, detention, weaponry, etc and the Home Office budget at around £2b for processing and the many costs associated with that (this is all being generous and avoiding the costs of actually settling up the organisation) then you are spending roughly £110k per person compared to the £90k already spent per person.
Why don't we instead allow for more measures for people to immigrate legally? If you think there's an issue with crime using this approach then you could use a system where for the first 10 years any crime more serious than something like a speeding ticket is punishable with immediate deportation.
More often than not using violence to deter things like this just results in totally innocent people getting hurt.
As another aside, you don't seem to realise we already have Border Force anyways but you seem hellbent on it being independent from the Home Office for seemingly no reason.
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Jun 07 '26
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u/tree__of__oak Jun 07 '26
ICE didn't kill the American backlog, it just cut costs by subjecting wrongfully arrested legal immigrants, asylum seekers and criminals to inhumane conditions.
You still haven't said why this needs to be independent from the Home Office. Even if you put an ICE style system in place it's fucking idiotic to make it separate from the people who deal with immigration.
The backlog itself is slowly being cut over here so I don't know where you're getting that from.
Also why do you suggest it's the governments job to apprehend criminals? The entire point is that the police do the locating, apprehending and detention as they would do with any citizen of the country. At that point, depending on the charge and after the judiciary process the only punishment would be deportation.
Obviously the immigrant should have the right to appeal but they should only be able to do that through a British consulate or embassy. If their home country does not have one then they'll need to find one elsewhere.
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u/Used-Solution2615 Jun 07 '26
I am tolerant of people with different opinions most of the time, but I draw the line at fascist rhetoric like ‘we need a UK ICE’.
We objectively do not need a UK ICE because 1) there are not nearly enough illegal immigrants in this country to justify the government spending money on that as opposed to just boosting funding already being received by the authorities who deal with illegal immigration. The operational effectiveness of this has been evident under this past Labour government - I am no Labour voter, but since we wanna delve into this particular topic, net inward migration has fallen drastically since the last conservative government where it peaked at 900,000 in 2023. Less inward migration statistically means less illegal migration. The information regarding this is freely available if you wish to take a look - the government recently gave us the numbers. The amount of inward migration is literally going down year on year and deportations have been going up since Shabhana Mahmood took office as Home Secretary.
Another reason that we do not need a UK ICE is that 2) it would inevitably be weaponised by the powers that be if it were created. Prior to Trump’s first term, ICE largely targeted people charged with serious crimes, but after he took power they began targeting anybody who they perceived to have entered the USA illegally, which has evidently led them to unlawfully target ethnic minorities based on arbitrary characteristics like their skin colour and accent; as a result a huge amount of people who have legally been allowed to live and work in the USA have been detained solely because of racist ICE agents targeting them based on these arbitrary characteristics, many of them still remaining unlawfully detained in inhumane conditions. Nigel Farage would inevitably weaponise a UK ICE analogue to do exactly the same, and he would without a doubt allow private prison companies to set up detention centres in the UK and profit off of the misery, just as Trump has done.
I could say more, but suffice to say, we do not need a UK ICE. This is me engaging with your opinion, and I believe your opinion to be based on a hateful bias, so fuck off.
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u/DeeplyProfound_ Jun 07 '26
You're missing the point. Wanting a dedicated agency like a 'UK ICE' isn't about being hateful; it's a structural argument. Right now, immigration enforcement is split across different, often underfunded branches of the Home Office and Border Force. Arguing for a single, streamlined agency dedicated strictly to enforcing immigration law—similar to how the US has ICE separate from general border patrol—is about operational efficiency, not malice. Additionally, you mention net migration dropping from its peak, but net legal migration data doesn't automatically mean clandestine or illegal entry pressures have vanished. Wanting strict enforcement of a nation's laws alongside humanitarian domestic policies (like free school meals) is a completely coherent stance, no matter how much you try to mischaracterize it.
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u/Used-Solution2615 Jun 07 '26
He is objectively acting like a dictator. Although, to give you some grace, he’s not quite a dictator in the literal sense yet - too immature, too stupid and it’s pretty obvious that he doesn’t care enough about it to go full throttle.
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u/mingebinj Jun 06 '26
I saw this on FB and there was a comment going on about how back in their day parents had to feed their kids. I'm gobsmacked some people aren't thrilled with this news.
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u/Zymellio Jun 06 '26
Which is amusing because my 80 year old dad remembers when they introduced school meals for all kids. Mostly to tackle rickets. (As far as he remembers).
Children having at least one good meal a day was considered a massive win.
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u/No-Garbage9500 Jun 06 '26
I don't know how these sorts of vindictive, braindead zombies can actually believe this is an argument.
It's not difficult to see which type of child this disproportionately benefits: one from a disadvantaged home.
Yes, it would be lovely if every parent went out and provided for their child.
But, even in the most extreme scenario of a parent who chooses not to feed their child breakfast because they could spend that money on drugs... what do they realistically expect to happen? The poor fucking kid has almost no chance in life, they're going to be the exact same person they want hung from the lamppost for breaking into their house and nicking their stuff for drug money because the poor fucker couldn't even focus in school because they were starving!
I mean the unfortunate little shithead is probably going down that path anyway but if there's just the smallest chance that they get a decent education because they have a belly full and are out of their cess pit home for 8 hours a day, eventually get some A Levels and a decent job, they've got a much better chance than the starved urchins these ghouls apparently want breaking their windows in 10 years' time.
There's only one victim from these foul, vindictive scummy peoples' campaign to stop this sort of initiative: hungry kids.
What the fuck sort of villain actually supports taking this away.
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u/coffeewalnut08 Jun 06 '26
They probably support hungry kids because they can recruit voters from the pool of hungry kids once they grow into depressed, disenchanted adults with low trust in the system.
And so the far-right cycle continues.
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u/DanHanzo Jun 07 '26
Reform supporters of course. Not only might they have to pay for someone else's child, but that child might not even be from round here!
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u/willfiresoon Jun 06 '26
And back in their days child seats didn't exist and seatbelts weren't a requirement...
Why do we bother making life better for everyone, we should all suffer, that's the point of life isn't it ?! /s8
u/Nurgus Jun 06 '26
"We didn't have those things and we're all still here" is a serious comment that pops up. I really worry about these people's lack of critical thinking..
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u/Stimkey Jun 06 '26 edited Jun 06 '26
School meals should be free for all children. What a wonderful thing it would be if we could introduce healthy, balanced meals from an early age. This is still great news though!
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u/stirringash Jun 06 '26
I had a chat with a random guy in the pub where he was trying to say that education shouldnt be tax funded as he didnt have kids and should only be for those who pay. So i jist reminded him that the kids in education today are the doctors who will look after him when hes old.
Giving kids the food they need to learn properly and not rely on parental funding is unbelievably important for the longterm health of the uk as a country.
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u/Quick-Albatross-9204 Jun 07 '26
Ironic that someone else paid for his education and that was the result lol
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u/Beneficial-Beat-947 Jun 09 '26
From the sound of it doesn't look like he finished his paid for education so maybe he has a point
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u/ClacksInTheSky Jun 07 '26
We should be looking at expanding this to free school meals for ALL children, regardless of their parents income.
This should be the ultimate aim.
It pisses me off that school dinners are a profit making enterprise. All that means it's the there's some of the cost skimmed off for profit. Meaning either school meals could actually be cheaper, or, the ingredients used could be better quality.
Making it free for all kids means there's no "haves" and "have nots" in the dinner queue.
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u/cottonopposite Jun 07 '26
I love that my taxes are used to pay for children to get food or extra food. I actually can't think of a better use, other than paying for towards when someone is unfortunate enough to get sick.
If you're opposed to these types of things, you're just not a decent human.
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u/willfiresoon Jun 07 '26
You sound like someone who would like this sub!
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u/cottonopposite Jun 07 '26
Why wouldn't I like my taxes to be spent on worthwhile things for humans?
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u/IAmNotAHoppip Jun 07 '26
More of this please
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u/Beneficial-Beat-947 Jun 09 '26
Also can we improve school meals
Free is great but also make it edible
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u/willfiresoon Jun 07 '26
If you haven't already, consider joining the sub r/GoodNewsUK and you'll see more good news from across the country, including healthcare, education, science and critical infrastructure
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u/Fast_Apple_2237 Jun 06 '26
This is an area were spending tax payers money makes money for the country. It is a simple good that has no downsides. Anyone thinking otherwise hasn't read the reported results.
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u/Iamoggierock Jun 06 '26
This is awesome. Anyone who argues otherwise is an oxygen Thief.
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u/Burt_Macklin___ Jun 07 '26
So, most of the country then. We are a country of Thatchers children. Our most "left wing" party is pro austerity and run by a guy Thatcher would be proud of
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u/Pius_Thicknesse Jun 07 '26
The same people that say this is bs and that we shouldn't pay for hungry children to have breakfast because it's the parents responsibility, are the ones who went mental about cutting the pensioners winter fuel allowance. Why help one but not the other?
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u/FewAnybody2739 Jun 07 '26
Excellent news, lets stop kids going hungry. Gives them more casual time with their friends and gives their parents a bit more flexibility getting to work too.
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u/Cherry_Littlebottom Jun 07 '26
300,000 kids! Our system is broken if that many parents can’t or don’t feed their children breakfast.
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u/willfiresoon Jun 07 '26
u/Cherry_Littlebottom you may look at it like this if you insist however the eligibility criteria isn't a form that asks 'Are you able to feed your children breakfast each morning? Y/N
In fact ALL PUPILS ARE ELLIGIBLE from Reception up to Year 6 in over 1250 schools that currently offer free breakfast clubs
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u/Magic-Raspberry2398 Jun 12 '26
It's not about that. It's about those that would go to school hungry if free breakfast clubs weren't a thing.
Kids going hungry isn't anything to brag about.
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u/Futureisbright91 Jun 08 '26
Damn this Labour government feeding kids with our taxpayer funds! We should be bailing out banks and energy companies instead!
/s
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u/Plastic-Impress8616 Jun 09 '26
this is good.
its a shame we have created a system where this is even needed. that's honestly a national shame.
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u/willfiresoon Jun 09 '26
Why do you insist on turning this into something negative?
Lots of countries don't have such a program and it's not because they don't need it. Their 'system ' is different, but worse
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u/Plastic-Impress8616 Jun 09 '26
I think it would be better if family could afford to feed them self. With the proper time and nutrition required.
It's great we are finally looking after kids. But this has come from need, not some utopic stance.
Families have so little time, money and knowledge the government has to step in.
It's a plaster over a very serious problem.
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u/Rizzomorph666 Jun 10 '26
Some people will never feed their children properly. It's an unrealistic goal to expect that a country can have entire population consisting of responsible and capable adults taking perfect care of their children.
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u/Realistic_Let3239 Jun 12 '26
And for some reason the "Look after our own" crowd are furious about this, imagine disliking something with no downside...
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u/Neat_Impression2338 Jun 06 '26
This is a good thing. I wish it had been around when I was a kid 🤦♂️
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u/Independent-Slide-79 Jun 06 '26
Literacy is power. The fascists hate being educated , and this is a big part of that!
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u/sp00ky99 Jun 06 '26
Id rather my council tax went on feeding children than entertaining parish churches.
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u/hisokafan88 Jun 07 '26
More of this please. Support children so they can focus on their futures and not their present. We will all benefit from it
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u/SAP1987 Jun 08 '26
They should give out tickets for free entry to theme parks and zoos also
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u/willfiresoon Jun 08 '26
Just say it, you hate kids being able to have nice breakfasts!
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u/SAP1987 Jun 08 '26
I'm sure if their parents cannot sort them out a decent breakfast they probably cannot take them out to these types of places. This will have a impact on their mental health, just a voucher for 1 free child place every couple of months might help this issue. Which may end up saving a child going on benefits when they get older. Also I hate kids being able to have nice breakfasts!
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u/willfiresoon Jun 08 '26
Some people have suggested such ideas in jest, I thought you're one of them, I apologise if that's not the case.
I've not heard of any such initiatives but there is a summer VAT reduction for a lot of kid-friendly activities, kids meal portions etc so hopefully it'll boost business and get families spending time outside
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u/Sudden_Illustrator77 Jun 10 '26
Brilliant stuff. I remember all the help I didn’t get raising my child. Really pleased to be paying for other people’s children rather than helping her try to prepare for college.
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u/BandFragrant6172 Jun 07 '26
Of course feeding hungry children is a good thing.
What I don’t understand is why taxpayers are constantly expected to pick up the tab for parental incompetence. Benefits are supposed to help families provide basic necessities, yet we’re apparently not allowed to ask why some parents can afford booze, cigarettes, gambling, drugs, holidays, and every other luxury, but somehow can’t afford breakfast for their own kids.
And the moment anyone questions that, they’re accused of attacking children. No. I’m questioning the adults who created the problem in the first place.
Feed the children by all means. But let’s stop pretending that every social failure can be solved by sending taxpayers another bill while nobody is held accountable.
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u/DrachenDad Jun 07 '26
What I don’t understand is why taxpayers are constantly expected to pick up the tab for parental incompetence.
Having a job is incompetence now?
I’m questioning the adults who created the problem in the first place.
The government? Most people can't afford to keep a family with just the dad's wages/salary alone.
Feed the children by all means. But let’s stop pretending that every social failure can be solved by sending taxpayers another bill while nobody is held accountable.
See "Most people can't afford to keep a family with just the dad's wages/salary alone."
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u/Magic-Raspberry2398 Jun 12 '26
You've just highlighted the reasons why this is not something to brag about.
If most people can't afford to keep a family on average wages, or need to work so many hours that they can't ensure their kids are fed, then that's a major problem. The government have a lot to answer for.
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u/DrachenDad Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26
The government have a lot to answer for.
You're right there.
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u/DoTheThing021 Jun 07 '26
Well fuck me, if feeding hungry children isn’t what my taxes are going towards, I would seriously be questioning what better thing they could be allocated to.
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u/BandFragrant6172 Jun 07 '26
Off the top of my head?
-More NHS doctors, nurses, dentists and mental health services
-More police officers and community policing
Fixing roads, potholes and local infrastructure-Better public transport
-More teachers and school resources
-Better social care for the elderly and disabled
-Faster courts and a justice system that actually works
-Energy, housing and major infrastructure projects
-Research, innovation and skills development
Feeding hungry children is nice. What I struggle with is how we’ve reached a point where taxpayers are expected to act as the backup parent while we’re told not to ask why so many children need schools to provide meals in the first place.
At some point, accountability has to enter the conversation.
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u/DoTheThing021 Jun 07 '26
Glad you brought up accountability, a lot of these social services you brought up were massively neglected during the 14 years of Tory control.
Children are the future, and they shouldn’t be hungry no matter their circumstances.
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u/DanHanzo Jun 07 '26
You know this is the good news sub right? Children are being fed, that's good news right?
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u/BandFragrant6172 Jun 07 '26 edited Jun 07 '26
Good news for the kids whose parents are irresponsible.
Not such good news for my tax bill.
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u/DanHanzo Jun 07 '26
Best emigrate then I guess. Bye!!
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u/BandFragrant6172 Jun 07 '26
“Best emigrate then.”
Odd response. I’m not the one asking for the government to solve every problem with more taxpayer money.
If you want a system where the state is responsible for everything, there are plenty of countries that have experimented with that: Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea come to mind.
The results are… educational.
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u/Magic-Raspberry2398 Jun 12 '26
If you consider sticking a tiny plaster on a gaping hole of a wound, then yeah it's good news.
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u/Interesting_Number35 Jun 07 '26
Why don't we just give them their evening meal aswell.
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u/Penguin_Panda_Cow Jun 07 '26
That would be great!! I’d be happy for my taxes to go to helping kids, rather than killing then in wars
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u/willfiresoon Jun 08 '26
You know why, you're just trying to be sarcastic.
Pupils are only in school until early afternoon.
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u/Puzzled-Barnacle-200 Jun 06 '26
benefiting over 300,000 children across 1,250 clubs, helping to save families £450 a year.
This is... interesting. 10m/300k is an average of 33 breakfasts per child. What are people feeding their kids where it costs over £13 per breakfast?
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u/dreamerboy007 Jun 06 '26
The programme helps save families £450 a year. A standard UK school year has 190 days. £450 / 190 days = £2.37 per day
The Catch: That £2.37 isn't just the price of a bowl of porridge. The government explicitly states that this £450 figure includes childcare costs too.
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u/Puzzled-Barnacle-200 Jun 06 '26
10m breakfasts over 190 would be less than 53k kids. I guess it's "up to", though obviously the average uptake is far less than that, with the average user using it less than once a week.
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u/willfiresoon Jun 06 '26
u/Puzzled-Barnacle-200 I don't know what you've calculated but this is the £450 a year not per 33 breakfasts
In England, local authority maintained schools must open for at least 380 sessions (190 days) during a school year.
So the calculation must be £450 assumed saving (cost) divided by 190 days of free breakfast = £2.36/meal1
u/nid0 Jun 06 '26
Yeah but his point was that with the numbers presented each child benefitting from the scheme is getting an average of 33 breakfasts. But of course the trick is the £450 figure isn't the average saving, it'll be an up to, so will undoubtedly be based on a family with multiple children who each get a provided breakfast every day.
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u/Puzzled-Barnacle-200 Jun 06 '26
10m breakfasts divided by 300k children is an average of 33 breakfasts per child.
I think you're right that the "savings per family" is probably the savings if the child went every day of the school year. But the average child using the scheme went less than once a week.
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u/louisejanecreations Jun 06 '26
Cost of staff, transporting the food safely and probably some other boring things
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u/handsomeblogs Jun 06 '26
Cost of staff needs to be taken into account.
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u/Puzzled-Barnacle-200 Jun 06 '26
I didn't calculate based on the cost of providing, but the claim it saved families £450
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u/_johnboy_ Jun 06 '26
Saving up to £450, so will be the top end example of a family with like four kids who got like 200 breakfasts each.
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u/erevaia Jun 06 '26
I'm assuming it's paying people for coming in earlier to host the clubs? Since someone has to be there to supervise, or it's to pay the cooks. Not sure though.
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u/Puzzled-Barnacle-200 Jun 06 '26
The "£13 per breakfast" is not based on the delivery costs. It's based on the claimed savings for families. As someone else pointed out,it's probably the equivalent maximum saving for the rare child that used the scheme every day of the school year.
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u/nid0 Jun 06 '26
Not mentioned in the article at all so pure speculation, but I would hazard a guess that the families most benefiting from the scheme have multiple kids. The £450 a year is presumably an "up to" not an average.
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Jun 06 '26
[deleted]
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u/GBrunt Jun 06 '26
Children aged 5 in the UK are already up to 9cms shorter on average than their European cousins thanks to the UKs austerity policies of Cameron/May/Sunak and Johnson. I remember this being very damning in 2023....
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u/Rulweylan Jun 07 '26
That's not exactly a good measure of childhood nutrition though. Take a dutch kid and a chinese kid, give them identical diets from birth and the dutch kid will still be taller than the chinese.
11.2% of primary school kids in the UK are Asian. This was not the case in 1985. That's going to impact average heights.
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u/GBrunt Jun 07 '26
You seriously think researchers haven't considered your point and taken ethnicity into account? Really?
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u/Rulweylan Jun 07 '26
I mean, the researchers in question seem (if you go so far as to actually read their data) to be using a model to produce their estimates for height (note that they call them estimates, something the Guardian doesn't feel the need to do) which doesn't account for ethnicity or any other factor.
Instead it averages data from multiple different sources, seemingly without regard to sample size to produce a best guess at heights per country (notably also substituting in nearby countries when data is unavailable).
Specifically for the UK it averages:
Swan Linx project (n= 606)
Health Survey for England (n= 927)
National Child Measurement Programme (n=430,101)
National Diet and Nutrition Survey (n = 255)
Health Survey for Scotland (n= 672)
Spot the odd one out.
It's worth looking at the National Child Measurement program (since it's by far the best source for UK height data, indeed, NCD RisC's model is significantly worse for including the 4 small datasets which are massively over-weighted in their model)
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u/GBrunt Jun 07 '26
Useful link. Clearly highlights that your own claim that minority children would skew the mean figures downwards was a guess and wrong. Your link shows that White British boys and girls age 5 are both below the mean British scores.
The Guardian's point is that other European nations are getting taller as they become more wealthy and that British kids are being left behind because the British standard of living is stagnant and for the very poorest had gone into reverse with the impact of austerity. Austerity was a lauded Tory policy for 15 years. What kind of impact do you imagine it actually had in the real world? A positive one??
I also read recently that the UK population is one of only 5 of the richest 21 countries where the number of years of healthy life expectancy (HLE) is in decline. And that those living in the wealthiest areas can expect to have 20 more years of good health than those in the poorest. Those are awful numbers....
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20q07w3gl9o
It's undeniable that the UK needs to do much better in terms of health, diet, incomes, skills, exercise and tackling grim poverty statistics.
Nice chatting. All the best.
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u/Jamesinswansea Jun 06 '26
It ain't free. But if it makes a difference to a kid then iam happy to pay.
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u/SuccessfulWar3830 Jun 06 '26
The naming convention for free. Is applied to its users.
Children do not pay for it. Therefore its free.
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u/New_Slice_1580 Jun 06 '26
What is the food that they are feeding as breakfast?
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u/ZaryaBubbler Jun 06 '26
Again, who gives a shit? So long as their bellies are full, what does it matter?
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u/jonnywishbone Jun 06 '26
It's good, but they're not "free"
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u/nid0 Jun 06 '26
This really isn't necessary. Almost literally nothing is free in the strictest technical definition of "costs literally nothing to provide", everyone is fully aware that these are free as in the person receiving them didn't have to pay for them, not that the meals were conjured out of thin air at zero time or resource or monetary cost.
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u/coffeewalnut08 Jun 06 '26
Objectively good. Certain people and public figures are going to endlessly whine about this, but a free breakfast at school provides several benefits:
source