This petition was submitted during the 2019-2024 parliament
Rejected petition #MakeTheUturn - Free School Meals for the 1.3 million children over the Summer
No child should go hungry in our country. We call on the Government make the U-turn to extend free school meals to all children living in poverty, including low-income working families. This roughly equates to 1.3 million children.
More details
The pandemic has left many families struggling with food insecurity. The Government’s decision not to extend Free School Meal provision or vouchers across the summer holidays will mean many children will go hungry. Free school meals provide vital support for low-income families and for almost a third of children, school lunch is their main meal of the day.
Extending this scheme can potentially decrease health inequalities and ensuring a holiday without hunger for our country's children.
This petition was rejected
Why was this petition rejected?
We can't publish petitions when the request is something that's already happening or something that has been announced since you started your petition.
We think your petition is covered by Government or Parliament action already. If you'd like something else, you could start a new petition clearly explaining what it is.
Since you started your petition, the Government has extended the voucher scheme to cover the school summer holidays. For more information visit: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/covid-summer-food-fund.
You can find out more about coronavirus and how you can protect yourself and others here:
www.gov.uk/coronavirus
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/
The Government has also created an online service to help you find out what you can do if you’re struggling because of coronavirus: https://www.gov.uk/find-coronavirus-support
You can read NHS tips to help if you are worried about coronavirus here: https://www.nhs.uk/oneyou/every-mind-matters/coronavirus-covid-19-anxiety-tips
You can read impartial analysis of the Government response to coronavirus and policy developments here: https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/coronavirus/
You may also be interested to know that because of the large number of petitions that have been started in relation to coronavirus, the Petitions Committee has been questioning the Government about its response to the coronavirus outbreak.
Find out more: https://committees.parliament.uk/work/192/the-governments-response-to-coronavirus/
We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.