Commenting on the Trussell Trust’s forecast of high demand for food parcels this winter, Daniel Kebede, General Secretary of the National Education Union, said:
"That food banks are gearing up to support even more people than last winter is a damning sign that the Government has failed to support people through the cost-of-living crisis and presided over a decline in living standards.
"An expected increase on the 220,000 children who accessed food banks last year is nothing short of an emergency. Evidence from the COSMO study in May this year suggests that children in families forced to use food banks receive lower GCSE grades and we know that many more people are living in deep poverty than when the cost-of-living crisis started to take effect.
"Poverty and child hunger have tremendous social and moral costs and the Government must act now to reverse this worrying trend. Introducing free school meals for all children, starting with those in primary, is the best way to ensure that no child goes hungry while in school, and lifting the two-child limit would take 250,000 children out of poverty overnight. The Government must act now. The cost of inaction is far greater."