Tories announce rise in infant free school meals funding – of just 7p per child: Schools will be able to spend £2.41 per child on infant meals backdated to April, a rise of 7p – which was branded ‘pathetic’ by critics

19 comments

1. Or to put it another way: a ~7% real terms cut in funding.

2. Ah yes, the old “technically something” strategy

3. We have to allow for the £100,000 Boris Johnson had promised Carrie for pleasured rendered four years ago.

   There may be other outstanding payments to other working girls.

4. 7p per child? Why Tories tell me 7p is enough for an adult to eat on.

5. Is it just me or is £2.41 per portion for a cooked, healthy lunch actually a decent amount? Considering they are buying ingredients in bulk, and looking at the quality and quantity of average school meals it feels like they would easily fit inside that budget? At regular supermarket prices you can make for example a cottage pie with some greens on the side that will feed 4 adults for £6-8 depending on where you shop, that same meal in infants portions would generously feed 6, being around a third of the recommended daily calories for 4-8 year olds and making it £1.34 at the higher end of regular supermarket prices. There are an abundance of healthy meals that can be made for this price and it also leaves room for a carton of milk and a small snack of some sort to even fit inside the budget.

   There’s plenty of reasons to be outraged with how little our government is doing to combat the cost of living crisis, but this really doesn’t feel like an issue.

6. At the very least 7p gaurentees kids will get their RDI of copper and nickel.

7. Wow. That was even less than when I was in infants 25 years ago. And you could get all the lumpy mash potato you could shake a stick at.

8. Tories are terrorists.

9. We should make Therese Coffey exist on whatever they feed the nippers. Then we’ll see whether it’s enough. Do her a favour too.

10. Nice, they can now afford an additional 7 grains of rice 🙂

11. Today’s kids are tomorrow’s adults. They are the doctors, nurses, teachers and whatever else of tomorrow; a 7p investment in that at a time of record poverty is pathetic. Then again, what do you expect from a government that objected to feeding kids for free over half term during the worst of COVID? Those in need are a nuisance in their mind and children caught in the middle of that even more so. As long as their children are not affected, nothing significant will ever be done to help children most at risk in society.

12. Pathetic? I think it’s actually deeply insulting.

13. They spend more than that exporting asylum seekers.

14. Are you sure you read that right? It could be that Boris has cut public spending by introducing infant-free school meals. Much cheaper if you only feed the teachers.

15. Is that per week? Seems a lot for one meal

16. Happy to be educated by those who run school catering budgets, but this is plenty for a single meal. When I left the Navy (and responsible for menus and budgets onboard) back in 2015 it was somewhere around £2.20 per man per day, and believe me no one went hungry and had 3 good quality meals a day. Totally accept prices have gone up a lot since then, but £2.41 per child per single meal catered enmass sounds perfectly reasonable.

    Edit: 2018 figures i could find were £3.32 per day ie 50p breakfast, £1.66 lunch, £1.16 dinner.

17. Allegations , Johnson tried to get his then mistress a £100000 a year job in the Foreign Office !

18. Does that include transport, utilities and/or staffing costs? If not, £2.41 is a lot of money for a meal, especially for an infant. More than I’d spend as an adult. If it’s including transport etc, maybe it’s not much. Or is it for two meals? Still decent and enough to afford meat, if it’s just the food. Three meals, yeh it’s not much at all.

19. That’s why so many people are obese, they feed children Iceland style meals and they just continue thought their lives. I seen adults eating ready meals every single day at work and it looks pathetic…