Yet another £600 million down the drain

wotsthat

Stuff like this should come from party budgets.

Nothing to do with government and all to do with politics.

Child benefit has taught them nothing about the dangers of giving money to people that don't need it.

vivatifosi

On TV I heard that this will help reduce the stigma of those receiving free school meals.

Given that mechanisms such as direct debit have existed for years and children of families who can afford them no longer take a penny in a matchbox to pay for their lunches, my question would be who is 'outing' the children that receive free school meals as opposed to paying for them?

Surely that's a data protection issue, not a chuck more money at it issue. Schools just need to implement a system where it is not possible to tell.

Plus, the Lib Dems are on TV talking about the importance of healthy eating. In spite of decades of campaigns for good food in schools the children in my family still talk of chips and pizza being the lunch offering. How is that more healthy than good sandwiches, a granola bar and a juice carton?

Clearly children deserve a safety net in which they are fed rather than going hungry, but this policy is total madness.

Is this part of a broader issue to come up with irrelevant policies at the moment? This is about the third bonkers motion in a week. All no doubt aimed at winning votes rather than doing what we want politicians to do: sort out the economy.

wotsthat

vivatifosi wrote: »

On TV I heard that this will help reduce the stigma of those receiving free school meals.

Given that mechanisms such as direct debit have existed for years and children of families who can afford them no longer take a penny in a matchbox to pay for their lunches, my question would be who is 'outing' the children that receive free school meals as opposed to paying for them?

My daughter's school (normal secondary school) work on a thumbprint scanner. There's no way of knowing who gets free school meals and who doesn't.

I was a free school meals kid at various times - we had to line up in a separate queue!

Loughton_Monkey

wotsthat wrote: »

My daughter's school (normal secondary school) work on a thumbprint scanner. There's no way of knowing who gets free school meals and who doesn't.

I was a free school meals kid at various times - we had to line up in a separate queue!

I bet your daughter has a good idea who they are, though....

Used to be 5 shillings a week (25p) in my day. I suspect they have gone up a bit. I know as a fact that my father was earning £10 a week then.

pqrdef

They're at school less than 200 days a year, so somebody is being stitched up if they're paying more than £2 a time for infant meals.

LydiaJ

My daughter gets pretty good food. There are chips occasionally, but not that often, and the variety is good. She likes it and I'm happy she's getting a balanced diet - takes the pressure off me in the evenings. £2.20 for two courses plus extra fruit seems reasonable to me. I'm very happy that the parents at the school finally convinced the school to introduce hot lunches about a year ago - before that packed lunches were the only option, and the free school meals kids got free packed lunches.

But... I'm perfectly capable of paying for them myself, as indeed I shall continue to do because she's a junior not an infant. We've always had free meals for children from low income families, so this isn't "providing for all children", it's "providing rich children with what the poor already get". I think Clegg's naive to think this will be a vote-winner. There are far more people who'll resent paying for meals for rich children than families with infant-age kids who'll be happy about it, and most of those families will have other kids who won't get it, and will focus on how "unfair" it is that they only get it for those three years.

CKhalvashi

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

Cleggie reckons it's 'worth' £400 a year per child. So they don't need to feed the kid much when it gets home, and parents can swan off to the pub with more in their pocket.

I am absolutely appalled.

I'm more appalled that you seem to feel all parents swan off to the pub with an extra double shot a week in their pocked!

I'm typically only in a bar for 2 nights a week, and this is only because I run a large company, and do occasionally have evening meetings. My DD's are at the top of their classes, so it's certainly done them no harm, and has also let them see that to have what we do have, we work hard for it!

CK

princeofpounds

Nobody cared who got free meals when I was at school. It was a zero issue compared to discussing what flavour slop they were going to serve that day.

IronWolf

Everyone was jealous of people that got free meals when I was at school. What stigma?

Out,_Vile_Jelly

I think it's a good idea. There is evidence that universal benefits are cheaper and easier to administer than means tested. There is clear evidence from the pilot scheme that children all fed like this improved academically. Apparently in France children all eat decent quality school lunches, with just fresh water to drink, sitting at tables, supervised to ensure manners. Eating well and sociably therefore becomes the norm.

We all pay taxes to fund universal free education, surely we want to get the best value out of that? If all pupils have had a decent meal (and learn some table manners) it makes life much easier for teachers and we will all benefit in the end.

The Tory marriage tax thing is a nonsense from my point of view. I'm happy to subsidise the educational well being of those who will be paying my pension, but don't see why I should fund smug marrieds. It really is rubbish being single in this country.