6th June – Jack Abbott Welcomes Free School Meal Boost for 6500 Children in Ipswich

For the past decade and a half, Britain has suffered from a worsening child poverty crisis.

A shocking one in three children in Ipswich live in poverty. The number of children living in temporary, insecure accommodation in Suffolk, increased by 33% in the last five years alone. Thousands of children in our town live day to day facing a real risk of hunger.

I know many of you reading this column will still be picking up the pieces from the Conservative cost-of-living crisis, and the kamikaze approach that Liz Truss and her party took with the economy.

It is not them who are picking up the tab with their reckless gamble, but the rest of us. Despite working so hard and doing everything right, for many people, it is a real struggle to put food on the table, pay the bills, or find the money each money for the rent or the mortgage.

As a County Councillor, I campaigned relentlessly on the issues of food and child poverty, and worked extensively across education, children’s services and early years. I know how going to school hungry impacts a child’s learning. I know how, all too often, poverty, rather than talent, knowledge or hard work, can define a child’s outcomes.

Since 2018, children have only been eligible for free school meals if their household income is less than £7,400 per year, meaning hundreds of thousands of children living in poverty have been unable to access free school meals.

Before becoming an MP, I pledged to fight to expand eligibility for Free School Meals, to extend them all children from families who receive Universal Credit.

This week, that promise was fulfilled, with the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, announcing this crucial change.

It means that over 6,500 more children in Ipswich - and half a million more children across our country - will benefit from a free nutritious meal every school day.

It will make a real difference to local families by putting £500 back into their pockets.

It will also lift 100,000 children out of poverty.

Alongside free breakfast clubs, cheaper uniform costs, and greater childcare support, it shows how our Labour Government is relentlessly focused on easing the burden on families, improving outcomes, and lifting children out of poverty.

Labour governments throughout history have made tackling child poverty their central mission.

Ramsay Macdonald, himself grew up in abject poverty, and as Prime Minister, doubled child allowance and began the programme of mass slum clearance that later Labour governments were to finish.

Clement Attlee’s Labour government, in the wake of the Second World War, laid the foundations of Britain’s welfare state, cleared thousands of people out of the slums that still blighted vast swathes of Britain, and, most famously, created our National Health Service.

Harold Wilson’s Labour governments introduced educational reforms, social assistance schemes - most famously, Child Benefit Allowance - and housing projects to tackle child poverty.

The Institute of Fiscal Studies has said that period of the mid-1960s to 70s, including the time Labour was in government, saw the lowest level of poverty in the entire twentieth century.

Despite decades of progress, under Margaret Thatcher, the level of poverty in Britain nearly tripled.

When Labour returned in 1997, the rate of children in absolute poverty was slashed in half during their time in government.

Now, just like Labour governments past, this Labour government is getting to work on this moral imperative.

There is still much work to do to tackle the scourge of child poverty which spiralled under the previous Conservative government. However, boosting Free School Meal eligibility is game-changer for children and families in Ipswich and across our country.