The parents of children in some of the poorest areas of England shared photos of sparse food parcels meant to starve while being forced to stay home due to COVID locks.
The parcels, described by opposition politicians as “unfortunately inadequate”, are eligible for parents of children who are eligible for the UK scheme for free school meals. Usually these children are provided with a hot meal during the school day, but due to COVID rules prohibiting children from going to school, school leaders are asked to give the parcels to families instead.
These food parcels, put together by schools or the private catering establishments they normally use, replaced gift vouchers given to parents to spend in supermarkets as schools closed during the summer holidays. The government says it provides £ 15 per child per week, but one package posted on Twitter was valued at just £ 5.22. It contains two potatoes, a can of beans, eight single cheese slices, a loaf of bread, two carrots, three apples, two malt sandwiches, three yoghurt packets, a little pasta and one tomato, and it is expected to last ten days.
The mother writes next to the picture: “Issued instead of £ 30 vouchers. I could have done more with £ 30 to be honest.” She added: “The private company that has the contract for free school meals has made a good profit here.”
Premier League footballer Marcus Rashford, who took the British government by storm in June over providing meals for children through the summer, said the package was “unacceptable”. He shared several photos of other food parcels his parents sent him, including one containing three small fruit cartons, four apples, a can of baked beans, raisins and snacks. The mother who received the package said it was supposed to provide food for her eight-year-old child for three days. British food writer Jack Monroe, who became a best-selling author after documenting their own cooking experience while surviving on government benefits, also tweeted at length about the packages.
They posted messages from parents, as well as from staff allegedly working for the catering companies providing the parcels, who described the portion sizes as ‘disgusting’. “Have we had enough examples that they can not say it is an isolated incident, or should I continue ?!” Monroe said.
Imagine that we expect the children to learn at home. Not to mention the parents they sometimes have to learn who probably did not eat at all, so that their children …
We MUST do better. This is 2021 https://t.co/mEZ6rCA1LE
– Marcus Rashford MBE (@MarcusRashford) 11 January 2021
Some of the packages shared online were provided by the private catering company Chartwells, which is part of the FTSE 100 food service company Compass Group. The group’s chairman, Paul Walsh, is a donor to the Conservative Party and was a member of former British Prime Minister David Cameron’s business advisory group.
A Chartwells spokesman said the picture posted on Twitter was not a specific aspect of our obstruction, and that we would like to investigate at the school concerned. They said: “We take our responsibility to give children access to nutritious food very seriously. We have worked hard to produce food hampers at incredibly short notice during these challenging times. Our hampers follow the specifications of the Department of Education (DfE). “and contains a variety of ingredients to help families offer meals during the week. In most cases, we have received positive feedback.”
A DfE spokesperson tells Newsweek that schools receive funding of £ 15 per week for each child eligible for free school meals to provide food during lock-in. In the first place, the government recommends that schools provide food barriers put together by their existing caterers, or that they should issue local gift certificates to parents if they are unable to provide food barriers.
The national voucher scheme, which initially stretched over the summer holidays following the Rashford campaign, will be launched again within a week, the spokesman said, and will continue as long as schools are closed due to closure measures.
The spokesperson said it is schools that have to decide which method of food supply is best for the parents of suitable pupils. Premier Boris Johnson has said he will review the closing rules in mid-February when schools in England take their half-term break.
#FreeSchoolMeals bag for 10 days:
2 days jacket potato with beans
8 single cheese sandwiches2 day carrots
3 days apples
2 days hurt
3 days frubesSave pasta & tomato. Will need mayo for pasta salad.
Issued instead of £ 30 vouchers. I can do more with £ 30 to be honest. pic.twitter.com/87LGUTHXEu
– Mom by the Road 🐯 (@RoadsideMum) 11 January 2021
In the government’s guidelines for providing free school meals during COVID, schools can request an additional £ 3.50 per pupil to cater for children learning at home. The guidelines state that food parcels should contain food products “that parents can use to prepare healthy lunches for their child or children during the week” as opposed to pre-prepared meals. It adds that the disabled should not rely on parents having additional ingredients at home and that they should provide for pupils of all diets.
Opposition leader Sir Keir Starmer called the images of parcels posted online a disgrace. “Where is the money going? It needs to be sorted immediately so that families do not go hungry due to lockdown,” he wrote in a tweet.
Katie Barry, the head teacher at St George’s Primary School in Lincolnshire, East Midlands, now provides food parcels to all her pupils – whether they are eligible for free school meals or not.
This week, her staff handed out more than 200 parcels paid within the school budget, taking into account the staff costs, a budget of less than £ 1 per pupil. It was all arranged within days, and schools only said last week that they should close under new restrictions.
“The government’s voucher scheme may have allowed £ 15 a child per week, but that’s not what we should be spending,” Barry said Newsweek. “We are in a happy position because we have a school kitchen, so we have autonomy over what we can offer, but other schools and parents are gracious to what private catering companies give them.”
Christopher Furlong / Getty
The school also has a food bank, with parents who can pick up necessities every Friday. More than 150 people now stand in line outside the school every week, Barry says. “We know there are hungry children, whose parents are at home with empty cupboards and empty refrigerators. Hungry children cannot learn,” Barry said.
“But we also know that we have hungry parents. We decided early in the pandemic that providing food would be part of our core needs as a school. We are meant to teach first, but now we need to make sure people have enough. “Eating is also one of our fundamental principles.”
She hopes that schools will gain more knowledge from the government to be able to make arrangements for children if the lock-in rules are further expanded. “We can turn tides, we will do it, but we need to be notified more so we can plan ahead, otherwise some kids will be without it.”