Mayor’s Free School Meals Policy Having Positive Effects

Source: On London, 19 November 2024

The provision of free meals for all of London’s primary school children has alleviated food poverty, benefited school communities and been good for their family lives, according to a report by an independent health charity.

Impact on Urban Health, which is part of the Guy’s and St Thomas’s Foundation, conducted an evaluation of the policy introduced by Sadiq Khan in September 2023, the start of the school year, and meant the number of children entitled to free school meals rose by 270,000.

The study, entitled More Than A Meal found that the policy was popular with parents across the income range – reflecting an average take-up of the offer of 89.1 per cent – who felt it countered the effects of the high cost of living and also by those working in schools, who told researchers it had “helped to address to problems of hidden hunger and food insecurity” as well as improving access to nutritious food.

More than half of parents surveyed on Universal Credit said the policy was “significantly helping” their household finances, compared with 31 per cent of those receiving the benefit. City Hall data showed that take-up of free school meals among those means-tested for them rose from 88 per cent to 94 per cent after the Mayor’s policy came into effect.

There were wider benefits for school communities as a whole, according to the report. Our research shows that before the policy was introduced many families found the mornings before school highly stressful,” the report says, but now find “their mornings run more smoothly”.