Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
SPECIAL PRICE: Just £9.99 for the next 8 weeks
Subscribe today
Social Justice

School Holidays Put 3 Million Kids at Risk of Going Hungry

MPs warn that millions of children in poverty could be left hungry during the school holidays

School children across the country – and very many teachers – are looking forward to the long summer break. But up to 3 million children living in poverty across the UK are vulnerable to going hungry during the school holidays, according to a cross-party panel of MPs and peers.

Members of the all-party parliamentary group (APPG) at Westminster heard evidence from charities that some kids were living on crisps when not at school, and some couldn’t take part in football or other sports because “their bodies simply gave up.”

Members of school staff have noticed some pupils coming back for the new term hungry and sluggish.

The group’s report state one million children depend on school meals, while another two million have parents who work but still live in poverty.

The MPs and peers recommended that money raised from the planned tax on sugary drinks should be ploughed into ensuring children don’t go hungry during school holidays.

They urged the government to ring-fence 10 per cent of the sugar tax – to be introduced next year – to ensure children are fed properly during the holidays. This could cost just £1.50 per child per day.

Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty

It would mean that councils would each be given £100,000 for schemes providing “free meals and fun.”

Abolishing hunger during school holidays is beyond the ability of individual community groups and volunteers alone

Labour MP Frank Field, spoke of the “horror of hunger” for some children, and hailed “heroic efforts” by local activists to combat it.

But he said government had to step in to help stamp it out, adding: “Abolishing hunger during school holidays is beyond the ability of individual community groups and volunteers alone.”

Simon Shaw, food poverty campaign co-ordinator at the food and farming alliance Sustain said: “As we said in our submission to the inquiry, the school holidays can be times of great difficulty for families with children experiencing hunger, social isolation and learning loss.”

Watch the Pride special collection.

Our LGBTQ+ film playlist offers a new and interesting angle on LGBTQ+ love and struggle – giving an international overview by taking us inside some of the most and least sexually liberated countries in the world.  

Sign Up Now
Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty

READER-SUPPORTED SINCE 1991

Reader-supported journalism that doesn’t just report problems, it helps solve them.

Recommended for you

View all
Single people must earn at least £30,500 per year to live well in the UK
woman in supermarket
Living standards

Single people must earn at least £30,500 per year to live well in the UK

Revealed: Millions of disabled people went to a food bank last year as Labour plotted benefit cuts
A Trussell food bank worker sorting food parcels. Image: Dan Prince
Food banks

Revealed: Millions of disabled people went to a food bank last year as Labour plotted benefit cuts

Scotland faces growing nitazenes threat as it grapples with drugs deaths crisis
a syringe and pills of drugs
Drugs

Scotland faces growing nitazenes threat as it grapples with drugs deaths crisis

'We can read their eyes': Donkeys serve as 'animal ambulances' in Gaza. But they now face starvation, Palestinian vet warns
Gaza

'We can read their eyes': Donkeys serve as 'animal ambulances' in Gaza. But they now face starvation, Palestinian vet warns

Most Popular

Read All
Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits
Renters: A mortgage lender's window advertising buy-to-let products
1.

Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal
Pound coins on a piece of paper with disability living allowancve
2.

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal

Cost of living payments: Where to get help in 2025 now the scheme is over
next dwp cost of living payment 2023
3.

Cost of living payments: Where to get help in 2025 now the scheme is over

Citroën Ami: the tiny electric vehicle driving change with The Big Issue
4.

Citroën Ami: the tiny electric vehicle driving change with The Big Issue

Reader-supported journalism that doesn’t just report problems, it helps solve them.

Every day, Big Issue digs deeper – speaking up for those society overlooks. Will you help us keep doing this work?