Northumbria researcher joins appeal to Downing Street on free school meals and holiday support

A Northumbria University academic, whose research has played a key role in bringing breakfast clubs and holiday activities to millions of children across the country, has joined a coalition calling on the Government to reverse a decision that would sever the long-standing link between Free School Meal (FSM) entitlement and the Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme.

The coalition, led by the Alliance 4 Children, Feeding Britain and Northumbria University's Healthy Living Lab, is responding to Government plans to extend FSM eligibility to all families receiving Universal Credit from this month, bringing an additional 500,000 children into the scheme. While welcoming the expansion, the coalition warns that these newly eligible children will not automatically qualify for HAF support during the school holidays, creating what it describes as an unjust two-tier system in which a child's need for a nutritious meal is recognised in term time but ignored the moment school breaks up.

Professor Greta Defeyter OBE, Director of the Healthy Living Lab and Dean of Social Mobility Policy Engagement at Northumbria University, and Chair of Feeding Britain, is among those supporting an urgent letter on the issue to the Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Education which will be handed in at 10 Downing Street today, Thursday 10 September. The letter is backed by nearly 60 cross-party Parliamentarians, including Peers, Bishops and MPs from across the political spectrum, alongside leading academics, charity leaders and campaigners, making it one of the largest cross-party interventions on child food poverty this year.

A two-decade record on tackling holiday hunger

Professor Defeyter has spent more than 20 years researching the impact of school breakfast clubs, school meals and holiday food and activity programmes on children's health, wellbeing and educational outcomes. She founded Northumbria's Healthy Living Lab in 2006, and her research, carried out in partnership with organisations including children’s food and education charity, Magic Breakfast, and local authorities, has underpinned much of the evidence base for the nationwide expansion of breakfast clubs and holiday provision seen in recent years.

Her work has directly shaped Government policy, contributing to the £600 million funding announcement to continue the HAF programme over the next three years, and to a landmark survey of 20,000 parents and carers evidencing the difference the scheme makes to family finances and children's wellbeing.

Commenting on today's letter, Professor Defeyter said: “Having taken the laudable step of expanding free school meals to an additional 500,000 children, the UK Government has deemed those same children to be ineligible for HAF. That seems both illogical and deeply unfair. It also risks undoing the gains which should accrue, for children's development, from receiving term time free school meals. We also know that it is during the school holidays that many children, in the absence of free school meals, experience a poorer dietary intake as some parents struggle to feed their children and young people. Having accepted the need for this group of children and young people to receive help in term time, why deny that same need exists in the holidays?”

Why the Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme matters

• Essential nutrition and financial relief: HAF guarantees a nutritious meal every day during the school holidays — not necessarily hot (for example, a packed lunch on a HAF club day trip) — easing pressure on families for whom the six-week summer break can cost more than a week's wages.

• Wellbeing and safe enrichment: HAF provides safe, structured activity, tackles holiday isolation, and supports children with additional needs.

• Support for the working poor: Current thresholds penalise families who earn just above the cut-off but have no disposable income for holiday childcare.

• Clarity over confusion: A tiered eligibility system will be near-impossible to administer fairly, and will fall hardest on the HAF providers left to turn families away.

The ask

The coalition is calling on the Government to:

• Reverse its decision and explicitly maintain the link between means-tested FSM and HAF eligibility; and

• Increase the overall HAF budget to create the capacity needed to support the newly expanded cohort of 500,000 children.

Support for the campaign

J. Paul Wright, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of the Alliance 4 Children, said: “If a child needs a Free School Meal in term time, then surely they should have one in the school holidays! We are changing their world as well, rightly so, in that we are restricting harms from social media, so instead give them free access to their local Holiday Activity & Food (HAF) scheme. It is a no brainer for a caring government.”

Andrew Forsey OBE, National Director of Feeding Britain, said: “Feeding Britain is doing its bit to help families escape the hunger trap, by creating more than 60,000 additional places at holiday clubs this year for children in poverty who don’t qualify for HAF. But we can only do so much as a charity, and we need the policy itself to change so that every child and young person in receipt of free school meals has the right to access HAF. This really would give all school-aged children a fair chance of enjoying their school holidays, rather than fearing them.”

Sharon Hodgson MP, previous Minister for Public Health and Prevention, said: “Free School Meals and HAF have always gone hand in hand for good reason – children who need a meal in term time need one in the holidays too. As someone who has championed school food for the best part of two decades, both in government and as Chair of the APPG on School Food, I'm urging the Government to maintain that link and give every child on free school meals the same guarantee, all year round.”