Bake Off choose Prue Leith calls for free breakfasts for 4 million schoolkids

Prue Leith at this time led requires the Government to provide each little one on Universal Credit a free faculty breakfast.

The Bake Off choose and ­movie star chef hit out as a survey revealed 4 million hard-up youngsters – 39% of the college inhabitants – flip up for classes hungry however only one in 5 has entry to a breakfast membership. Dame Prue – whose son is the Tory MP for Devizes in Wiltshire – branded the Government’s lack of motion “a disgrace” and stated no teenager must be pressured to skip an important meal of the day. She additionally informed how attempting to get monetary savings by not feeding them is simply cooking up bother for the longer term.

Prue stated: “It’s not only a disgrace, it’s a false economy – let’s at least give them a chance of becoming productive citizens one day. I cannot believe government after government don’t see that free school food, at least for anyone on Universal Credit, would be money well spent.”

More than 10,000 faculties in England have excessive numbers of susceptible youngsters however solely 1 / 4 supply free breakfasts. It would take £18million to roll out the service throughout 2,500 extra lecture rooms.

Prue’s breakfast name was backed by fellow movie star chef Tom Kerridge, who additionally hit out at Rishi Sunak’s regime. Michelin-starred Tom, 50, stated: “How is it possible in the UK, in 2023, to have a situation as bleak as four million children arriving at school hungry?

“These are our children and our future and it’s an absolute disgrace that the Government isn’t doing more to address this issue. We need to put the pressure on now because the situation could not be any worse.” Mum-of-two Shireen Hussein, 35, is among the many dad and mom struggling to place meals on the desk for her two youngsters.

Shireen, of Warrington Cheshire, stated: “I have to use a local cut-price essentials service to get access to lower cost, nutritious food. How are children supposed to face the school day on an empty stomach? No child should ever – and I mean ever – have to face these feelings.”

Another hard-up mum stated: “Sending my daughter to a breakfast club is not an option for me, financially. I struggle to pay the bills let alone another added purchase.” Teacher Lucy Norman witnesses the impression of breakfast poverty first-hand on the North London major faculty the place she works.

She stated: “The unhappy actuality of being a instructor is seeing youngsters beginning at a drawback as a result of they’re hungry, which instantly impacts their skill to study. I’ve sadly seen the results of this.

“Children who are hungry are often less able to concentrate and keep engaged in lessons, which has knock-on effects on their learning development. Free breakfast clubs help close the gap and give all kids a fair chance to succeed so the more we can do to make them widely available, the better.”

Labour’s Emma Lewell-Buck stated the most recent figures show that Tory ministers don’t care about little one poverty. The MP for South Shields, who heads up the Child of the North marketing campaign to sort out little one inequality, stated: “Hungry children – no matter how bright they are and how dedicated their teachers are – don’t learn.

“There is simply no justification and no argument robust enough to deny children a breakfast. The only reason the Government does so is because hungry children never have, and never will, matter to them.”