Free School Meals and Governmental Responsibility for Food Provision
| DOI | 10.3366/elr.2021.0678 |
| Published date | 01 January 2021 |
| Date | 01 January 2021 |
| Pages | 111-117 |
| Author |
Is food a public law issue? Who decides and how do we decide? In the absence of the right to food what levers can be pulled to ask the government to do more for food security in the UK? These questions around government responsibility for food systems, churning away during the Brexit debates, long ignored, sometimes derided, are meeting stark realities in the COVID-19 pandemic. This comment focuses on one of them: free school meals (“FSM”).
In the summer of 2020 when the UK government announced that it would be stopping the provision of FSM in England over the summer holidays, the announcement was met with public outcry. When the UK government then U-turned on that policy decision this outcome was attributed to a successful online campaign led by footballer Marcus Rashford.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, at the last count 1.3 million children in England were eligible for FSM.
The UK government rolled out an electronic voucher scheme for children eligible for FSM. In May 2020, the Food Foundation released figures showing that many of the children who are eligible for FSM in England are not receiving them due to school closures and have not received any substitute. The figures projected that over 1.5 million people in families with children were unable to access food due to economic reasons: over 200,000 children have had to skip meals during lockdown; 350,000 children have not had enough to eat; 900,000 children have relied on low-cost food and over 1.2 million children have not had balanced meals.
A Human Rights Watch (“HRW”) study published on 27 May 2020 highlighted flaws in the electronic voucher system:
Rollout problems have left schools and families in England unable to access the electronic system. Some families have waited for weeks to receive vouchers, and some were unable to use them in supermarkets once they arrived.
HRW continuedFood bank use and reliance on emergency food parcels have increased UK-wide during this time. But education authorities in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland have pioneered more effective alternatives than in England.
Sustain and the Good Law Project sought to challenge the SSE's decision not to provide FSM in England during the 2020 school summer holidays. They intended to do so using the Education Acts 1996 & 2002, the Children Act 2004, the Equalities Act 2010, and the Human Rights Act 1998 and relevant case law. In the pre-action protocol,
Ground 1: The defendant (the SSE) failed to have regard to a relevant consideration: the likely...
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