The Children's Society has warned that the roll out of Universal Credit could result in up to a million children from low income families missing out on free school meals.
Figures published by the charity show that a family with one child in receipt of Universal Credit earning over the £7,400 threshold would need an extra £1,124 in income, equivalent to working for an extra 2.4 hours a week, to make up for losing their entitlement to free school meals.
This calculation is based on the annual cost of school meals for a family being £400, meaning they would need 7.7 hours worth of extra income every week to meet the cost, based on the National Living Wage,
Out of 2 million children living on or near the poverty line just 700,000 would have access to free school meals. The regions worst affected will be London, where 212,000 children will miss out and the West Midlands and North West, in both regions 130,000 children will miss out.
Chief Executive of the Children’s Society Matthew Reed said the government was missing out on a ‘golden opportunity to ensure that almost every child in England does not go hungry at school'.
He added that by continuing to provide free school meals to all children currently entitled the government would ‘not only help vulnerable children,’ it would prevent parents on low incomes from ‘losing out if they take on extra hours or get a pay rise'.
These figures come hard on the heels of a recent report from the Child Poverty Action Group shoeing that Universal Credit will have a damaging impact on working families struggling to get by on low Incomes.
Calks are mounting for the government to pause the roll out of Universal Credit and to rethink a policy that seems to be failing in its main purpose of enduring that work always pays.
To date they have not been disposed to listen and Prime Minister Theresa May added to concerns the government fails to understand the struggles of families on low incomes with an I’ll thought out comment made at the last PMQ's before Christmas.
Answering a question from Labour MP for Tooting Rosena Allin-Kahn about the 2,500 children in her constituency likely to wake up homeless on Christmas Day she said: ‘anyone hearing that question would assume that what it means is that 2,500 children will be sleeping on the streets. It does not:
She went on to say that families with children who are recognised as homeless would be provided with accommodation.
Speaking to the Guardian Ms Allin-Khan said she was ‘appalled’ by Mrs May's ‘callous’ answer to her question, adding that she was ‘effectively telling these children they should be grateful they’re not sleeping on the streets'.
Official figures show they the number of families in temporary accommodation is 79,190, 48% higher than in 2010.
Policy director for homelessness charity Crisis Matthew Downie, also speaking to the Guardian, said that children not having to sleep on the street was something to ‘celebrate’, but the government should do more to help people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless to get into ‘proper, stable, decent accommodation'.
The line between just getting by on a low income where meeting the basic costs of everyday living us an ongoing struggle and falling through the net onto the streets has always been thinner than we like to think. Globalization and the expanding gap between the rich and everyone else has made it thinner still.
As more and more families walk the debt tightrope the May government, with it’s determination to force through the roll out of Universal Credit despite growing evidence that it is a disaster in the making, seems ever more out of touch with the insecurity that haunts our society.
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