Free School Meals - What price on bad PR?

[fullyautomatix]

Well obviously if you give money then they can be spent on something else - police is too underfunded to police that level of benefits fraud!

Guaranteeed (healhy!) food in school for kids is best way to deal with it, not cash given. For all you know parents might be spending that money on ice-cream and lollypops

So the current benefits system isn’t working and is not fit for purpose then. Would those people be happy to get reduced child benefits and free meals for children?

[Andy2]

But poor parents have been given a lot of benefits already designed to ensure children do not suffer poverty. Why are children starving? You cannot offer all sorts of child benefits to poor parents so they can feed children and then have them asking for free meals on top of it.

it sounds like a blackmail. Give us more money or kids will go hungry.
So these people eat food and do not feed their kids , how is that possible ?

[AtW]

So the current benefits system isn’t working and is not fit for purpose then. Would those people be happy to get reduced child benefits and free meals for children?

No, they would not be happy, but it's the children that should be thought of more rather than parents.

[WTFH]

it sounds like a blackmail. Give us more money or kids will go hungry.
So these people eat food and do not feed their kids , how is that possible ?

Maybe it would be less galling if there was some compassion, and the people saying the government are doing the right thing and all people who require help are just useless scroungers - maybe they should think about why the government thought that "Eat Out To Help Out" is a better use of funds that "feeding children"
Or that giving millions away on PPE schemes to your mates is perfectly OK, but not feeding children as that encourages something worse than giving benefits handouts to millionaires like Dido Harding and co.

It's a slippery slope, as soon as you start helping people who genuinely need help, you don't have enough money to give to your friends.

[AtW]

maybe they should think about why the government thought that "Eat Out To Help Out" is a better use of funds that "feeding children"

Eat Out To Help Out Covid was the best possible use of taxpayer money to boost spread of Covid, only thing potentially better was allowing 3 mln people to go on holiday into Spain and other places.

[Gibbon]

<£1 a head so one pack of fags a week for 2 kids.

Cheap family meals: Budget recipes under GBP1 per head

No, the big cost is the elec/gas on a meter, even providing you have a cooker and haven't sold it.

Plus you're not factoring the ignorance of people being brought up without learning how to cook hygienically, I know people I wouldn't let near raw meat.

[ladymuck]

No, the big cost is the elec/gas on a meter, even providing you have a cooker and haven't sold it.

Plus you're not factoring the ignorance of people being brought up without learning how to cook hygienically, I know people I wouldn't let near raw meat.

There's also a whole heap of people who simply never learned how to cook. You may say it's simple stuff but there's a lot of people for whom even the basics are hard to fathom. I think a lot of schools may have gotten rid of the full kitchens they had for teaching home economics (which never touched on the economics of running a home but hey ho) so it's not guaranteed that good nutrition is even being taught. How to cook, run a home, manage your finances is simply not a curriculum focus.

[vetran]

No, the big cost is the elec/gas on a meter, even providing you have a cooker and haven't sold it.

Plus you're not factoring the ignorance of people being brought up without learning how to cook hygienically, I know people I wouldn't let near raw meat.

oh right I just see them buying beer & fags and feeding their kids chicken nuggets.

[AtW]

oh right I just see them buying beer & fags and feeding their kids chicken nuggets.

Great for the taxpayer

[SueEllen]

it sounds like a blackmail. Give us more money or kids will go hungry.
So these people eat food and do not feed their kids , how is that possible ?

Some of them actually don't eat. They make a crappy meal for their kids and then say they aren't hungry as there isn't enough food to go round.

Anyway this is what levels of benefits you need to be on to get free school meals - Apply for free school meals - GOV.UK

You are screwed if you are in a place with expensive rent costs e.g. London, SE, SW and not in social housing on less than £16,190