The last time Kallie Spearitt went to the cinema, it was to a morning showing so she and her family could afford to go together.
“As parents, we don’t have nights out,” the mum of three tells the ECHO when asked about how far their money can go amid growing pressures of the cost of living crisis. Kallie and her husband both work part time and have their income topped up by universal credit.
With food prices soaring and energy bills doubling in the space of a year, she says the couple had to resort to eating “smaller and cheaper meals” just so that her son could continue to “eat well”. At times when household budgets were tight, £30 a week would go towards school meals when all three of her children were still studying.
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Just one of her children remains at secondary school, meaning the school dinners burden has been slightly eased. But the ongoing cost of living crisis offers little to no breathing room.
The current threshold to receive free school meals is a household income of below £7,000. It means that Kallie and her husband are not eligible despite their current circumstances.
The mum, who helped set up her local food pantry St Andrew’s church in Clubmoor, says that around £7,000 a year of her household income is lost to rent, meaning there is little else to skim off the top. But no relief comes from paying out on school meals.
“It is about living – a life is more than existing,” says Kallie. “Nobody should be made to not enjoy things.”
Earlier this week it was announced that there would be some respite for parents living in London. While all primary school pupils in year one and two receive free school meals, the programme will be expanded universally to all primary school years.
It is said to be costing Mayor of London Sadiq Khan’s administration £130 million to provide the scheme for the next academic year. The funding will aim to support 270,000 primary school children and save families in London around £440 per child across the year.
West Derby Labour MP and food poverty campaigner Ian Byrne said that the commitment was a “game changer” and a “brilliant scheme”, but efforts still need to be made to see similar progress made at a national level with an even wider scope – with Liverpool experiencing some of the highest levels of deprivation in the country.
“It makes no difference if you are in primary school or if you are 14 when you are living in poverty,” said Mr Byrne of the need to see support for an encompassing and universal scheme.
He added: “For me the campaign has always been done on a national level. It is one of the main opportunities to tackle poverty at the root cause.
“We need to keep making noise about it and keep pushing it. Ideology needs to be taken out of it.”
In terms of any ideology behind the desire to implement universal free school meals, the scheme in London has been paid from the local authority’s own budget. Specific money from the Conservative Government has not been provided to support the policy.
But in the view of Cllr Tom Logan, Liverpool City Council cabinet member for education, the decision in London will “hopefully put pressure on the Government” when it comes to backing cash strapped authorities to roll out similar schemes – those that could provide significant support to struggling families earning just over £7,000 a year.
Cllr Logan told the ECHO that a similar scheme in Liverpool for all of Liverpool's primary school students would cost between £5-6 million, with £5.8 million a more precise estimate based on the current number of students in the city. But he said that these figures are a point of frustration, not because of their size, but because the current round of cuts – £49 million – means that there is no wiggle room on budgets to extend a free school meals scheme.
Some essential council services have only just been spared the chop in the next year and so finding what appears a reasonable sum in the grand scheme of an entire budget remains out of reach. “We would love to have it,” says Cllr Logan, “but 5.8 million is not something that we can afford right now. If it’s going to happen [the money] has to be from the Government.”
For Dr Naomi Maynard, Good Food Programme Director at Feeding Liverpool, this week’s announcement is a moment of celebration for food campaigners, but little difference will be made to those in Liverpool – noting that health should “not be a postcode lottery”. She told the ECHO that ensuring families on universal credit received free school meals would be a good first step in the right direction for a larger scheme. This is seconded by Kallie who is also campaigning to see the scope for free school meals widened.
Dr Maynard said: “The pressure it would relieve if parents knew that children had already received a main meal. Liverpool would be an ideal place to see if a trial scheme worked [based on universal credit].”
But effort should also be made to push for a more universal approach, Dr Maynard believes. By ensuring all children received universal free school meals, stigma would be detached and can have a positive impact on children’s mental health as well as their nutritional wellbeing.
If providing extra money to local councils is what is the main stumbling block, Ian Byrne believes a right to food should be viewed as an investment and a commitment on every party manifesto.
He told the ECHO: “It is an investment in the country’s future. We currently have four million kids going hungry. They aren’t following their potential – this is about the future of the country.”
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