New research has boosted Islington Labour’s policy of providing free school meals for all under-11 year olds as new research shows just how important the price of meals is to whether children eat a healthy school lunch.  The news came as leading children’s charity, Child Poverty Action Group, backed the scheme.
 
The report published by the School Food Trust, looked at the impact of prices on uptake of healthy school meals. It found that increased the cost of a school meals leads to a fall in the number of pupils buying them - with demand for school food more sensitive to price changes than other food products.
 
At the same time, research was published today in the British Medical Journal which shows just how unhealthy packed lunches are, with only one packed lunch in a hundred reaching the minimum health standards that all school meals reach.
 
The Islington Labour budget which passed at last February’s budget council meeting brought in free school meals for all Islington primary and nursery children. Yet since then, the ruling Lib Dem administration has consistently attempted to delay and block implementation.
 
Cllr Richard Watts, shadow executive member for children and young people said:
 
“It is a real shame that many kids are missing out on a decent school meal for the sake of a few pence a day, especially now we know how unhealthy many packed lunches are. Islington Labour’s free school meal policy will stop this happening here. At the start of this new school term we are telling the Lib Dems Council once and for all to give all our children the free school meals they deserve.”
 
And in another development, the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) told Islington Labour how important free school meals were for reducing child poverty:  A CPAG spokesperson said:
 
“Child Poverty Action Group supports moves to introduce free school meals .Free school meals remove barriers to work, reduce child poverty, and lead to better educational and health outcomes for all children.”
 
They went on to say that CPAG regretted: "seeing Islington council going back on moves to make them more widely available."
 
Commenting on CPAG’s support, St George’s ward candidate Alex Smith said:
 “We are delighted that the Child Poverty Action group has thrown its backing behind free school meals for all. The voters I speak to on the doorstep in St Georges ward keep telling me how much they support this policy, and we will keep up our campaign until all Islington school children are receiving these meals.”

Notes

1.                  The full report on ‘An analysis of the relationship between school meal take-up and prices prepared for the School Food Trust’ by London Economics can be accessed at: http://www.schoolfoodtrust.org.uk/UploadDocs/News/documents/School%20Food%20Trust%20FINAL%20REPORT%20Elasticity%20of%20Demand%20131009%20COMPLETE.pdf
 
2.                  Reports information on the packed lunch study can be found here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/jan/12/children-unhealthy-lunchboxes
 
3.                  Research published in 2009 by the Schools Food Trust found children in primary school were over three times more likely to concentrate and be alert in the classroom when changes were made to the food and dining room to provide a healthy lunch.
 
4.                  For more information on CPAG’s support for FSM see http://stgeorgeslabour.wordpress.com/2010/01/05/child-poverty-action-group