Thousands of children ineligible for free school meals but live in ’hidden poverty’ | Society | The Guardian
▻http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/mar/07/children-ineligible-free-school-meals-poverty
Tens of thousands of children living below the poverty line in some of the wealthiest parts of England’s home counties may be unable to afford a proper lunch but fail to qualify for free school meals, according to a study by the Children’s Society.
The charity urged the government to extend free school meals eligibility to more low-earning families, who may be in full-time jobs but struggle to get by.
In 57 of England’s 533 parliamentary constituencies, more than 60% of children living in poverty were either ineligible or failing to claim free school meals, according to the Children’s Society data, with these concentrated in the south-east, London and east of England. There were just 22 constituencies, all of them in the north of England and the Midlands, where fewer than 10% of children missed out.
An estimated 900 children living in poverty in David Cameron’s constituency in Witney, West Oxfordshire, miss out on a free school meal (47%). The figure is 1,400 (57%) in the education secretary Michael Gove’s Surrey Heath constituency; and 3,200 (58%) in Iain Duncan Smith’s Chingford and Woodford Green seat.
Labour leader Ed Miliband’s Doncaster North seat has 1,400 children missing out (33%). In the shadow chancellor Ed Balls’ Morley and Outwood constituency, 200 children (11%) were affected, while according to the figures data deputy prime minister Nick Clegg’s Sheffield Hallam constituency appears to have no children in poverty missing out on a free school meal.
The Children’s Society estimates that of 1.2 million children living in poverty in England that miss out on a free school meal, 700,000 do so because they are ineligible. The rest are believed not to take up the offer because they suffer stigma, teasing or embarrassment or because their parents are unaware of it.