There are 800,000 children in England who are not entitled to school meals, but their families cannot pay for a hot meal either, said the director of a British NGO. More and more people are falling below the poverty line: it is estimated that one in five people in England needs help. The reason for this is inflation: the rise in prices in Great Britain broke a 41-year record in November, M1 News reported.
Every day there are fewer and fewer children queuing at the canteen at this primary school in Birmingham. Only every second child gets a free lunch, the parents of the others have to pay 2 pounds 20 pence a day, i.e. about a thousand forints, if they want to provide their child with a hot meal.
Teachers warn: paying lunch money is a problem for more and more parents. In the United Kingdom, inflation broke 40-year records, and the price of milk and butter rose by more than 30 percent.
"27 years ago, when I started teaching, there was no food bank in the area, we didn't even know what it was. However, this has changed, there are a lot of people, especially since the Covid epidemic, who need help. Some people have lost their jobs, others are struggling to get by because of inflation. There are people who work but are in trouble, but they don't qualify for food stamps, so we give them food stamps," said one teacher.
Feeding their children is a problem for hundreds of thousands of families across the country. According to one NGO, these children often do not have access to properly nutritious food.
"There are around 800,000 children in England who live below the poverty line and yet are not entitled to free school meals. These are the children we are very concerned about in the current affordability crisis, as their parents have to make extremely difficult decisions when shopping. They often forgo school meals and pack their own lunches instead. "Nine times out of ten, these meals are much less nutritious than what you get in the canteen, and sometimes they don't get anything at all," said the expert.
There are people waiting in line with their toddlers for a bowl of hot food at a food bank in Blackpool, England. Hundreds are served here every day. According to some estimates, one in five English people is in need of help, and in winter the number of children living in poverty could reach one million.
Fresh meat is also protected against theft in London stores. Ever since inflation broke loose in England, it has become more and more common for customers to leave without paying for their groceries.
"The prices in the stores are outrageous, all my money goes to bills and shopping," said a woman shopping in the store.
Inflation in the UK has not been as high as it is now since 1981. Energy is also driving the rise in prices here: an average British household paid 89 percent more for gas and electricity in October than a year earlier.
Source: Hirado.hu
Image: Screenshot
