A good friend challenged me with these words some 15 years ago, when I rather grandly said “Let’s get pizza: I am starving”: “I have never been starving: I have only ever been peckish.”

For 24 years, I was a primary-school teacher and taught on inner-city estates in London and Bristol. During my teaching career, I saw the effects of food poverty on children, on their ability to learn and to be good citizens, and their well-being. I also saw the daily impact of stigma on families who did not want others to know that they were “free-school-meals”. I remember well a boy walking down the corridor with four boxes of pizzas that he had stolen from the local shop stuffed under his shirt. He was hungry.

Good food is a basic human right. Food is a great leveller.

We all need to eat to survive, to grow, to function, and to invest in the communities of which we are part. 

Schools are prime settings for giving children a hot meal. They are communities in which every moment builds children’s learning and their skills as community members. Eating together is a good thing to do; we are tribal.

In September 2023, the emergency scheme “Free School Meals for All” was begun by the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. Some 290,000 primary-school children were given a free school meal every day. I and many others are campaigning to see this provision extended to all primary schools in England.

Currently, free school meals are provided to all pupils from reception through to Year 2. From Year 3 on, the means-testing sets in. Some children will always be left out, given that this provision uses an eligibility framework. Wales was the first nation in the UK to deliver free school meals for all. Scotland now gives a free school meal to every child up to the age of ten. London has made this a permanent part of school life.

Many public and private figures are now urging the Government to provide a free hot school meal for every primary-school-aged child in England. The National Education Union’s campaign “No Child Left Behind” is about more than meeting children’s immediate needs: it asks what kind of society we want to build, and how seriously we take our responsibility for one another’s welfare and flourishing.

In the 1980s, we ran unofficial breakfast clubs and often topped up children’s food during the day with basics such as bread and butter, fruit, and milk. We did so because many children on the inner-city estate in London where I taught were always hungry. Other families struggled to provide healthy packed lunches, or felt the stigma of the free-school-meals label.

Forty years later, we are campaigning for universal provision in all primary schools in England which strengthens community life and ensures that each child receives a good-quality hot meal during the school day.

The Nuffield-funded study The Impacts of Universal Free School Meals Schemes in England identifies that universal free school meals reduce childhood obesity, improve reading scores, and boost attendance, while saving hard-pressed families nearly £500 a year per child.

Education is about caring for the whole child. During the Jubilee of Hope, Pope Leo stated: “Authentic human flourishing stems from what the Church calls integral human development, or the full development of a person in all dimensions: physical, social, cultural, moral, and spiritual.”

Human flourishing is not solely about the individual: it is about the communities of which individuals are part. Central to every community is how it treats its children, how it cares for them, educates them, and builds them up as responsible citizens. Central to this godly and human work is the truth that no child should be left behind. Every child, whether rich or poor, deserves the very best opportunities in school. This includes the opportunity to sit with friends without stigma and enjoy a hot meal every day.

As Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham was the first politician to sign his name to the campaign “Free School Meals for All”. Now, as Prime Minister, he has the chance to deliver the dinners. As government officials arrive in Liverpool for the Labour Party Conference this weekend, they will find us pressing the case.

In the diocese of Liverpool, Wigan deanery has carried a motion in support of this campaign. That motion will be referred to the diocesan synod. What can you do? Every deanery across the Church of England could join the campaign and magnify the voice of Wigan.

Individuals across our churches could sign up as well. We can petition our MPs to take action in Parliament and join in with the groundswell of voices across many sectors of our society in ensuring that no child is left behind.

And many of us, perhaps, need to stop saying “I am starving” when we are probably just “peckish”. Please join with me in supporting this campaign.

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