A parental-responsibility case carried the room, as No won by twelve points, but this was not a rejection of feeding children well so much as a rejection of making every taxpayer pay for every child. The floor’s highest-respected No argument reduced the proposition to “Free means paid by me”, while the Yes side’s strongest case treated universality as protection against gaps and stigma.
The winning side framed food as a parental duty: “Parents are responsible for feeding their children, not the taxpayer.” Even the softer No voices preferred a boundary between need and entitlement — “Those who can pay, those who can’t should get them free” — with targeted help judged a better use of public money.
Yes voters argued that the boundary itself leaves children exposed when wages are low or families sit just above the threshold for support. Their most-respected argument said universal meals would “guarantee every child the nutrition needed to concentrate, learn, and thrive”, while another put the moral case more simply: “no child chooses their financial situation”.
The two sides also talked past each other on what a school meal is for. Yes voices saw “better attention, healthier meals” and a safeguard against hunger; No voices worried about cost, poor procurement and parental abdication, even as one Yes voter conceded that nutrition mattered only if the food was genuinely good. That places the result inside the wider argument over whether child poverty is best met through universal public provision or sharper means-testing, especially as eligibility is being widened.
The chamber’s answer was not that school food lacks value, but that universality asks the state to carry an obligation many voters still assign first to parents.
26 Opinions
Something so cheap to provide by parents should not come through the public sector, once your getting in to procurement of food, providing staff etc etc it becomes very expensive and inevitably poor quality. Far better for people just to come in with a pack lunch which should be fully covered by child benefit.
Those who can pay, those who can’t should get them free.
You would have to lock the doors to prevent the kids escaping for chips and some kids would just truant if they can't get chips. This is not how to solve the admitted problems of childhood obesity and bad parenting. Are school nurses still a thing?
I went yes in the hope that it would also lead to nutritional meals !! Not bits of pizza and fizzy drinks. Obesity ,adhd,etc hasn't just appeared out of thin air. Processed foods have a lot to do with it
I'm a cautious no on this one. If the meals could be provided on a not for profit basis I would be swayed to say yes given that nutrition is vital to ensure children have the best opportunity to learn. That said, those deemed vulnerable may also come from families already in receipt of state benefits and should therefore be adequately fed if those funds are being used responsibly by their parents.
Targeted support for poorer pupils is a better use of resources. Pupils from better-off backgrounds do not need subsidised meals.
Nothing is free. It’s feel good Socialist nonsense, rhetoric & doling out largesse with the pretense it’s free. Definitely subsidise those families who really need it but if families cannot or won’t give their kids breakfast we have a larger problem. The Fabians/Marxist are all about destroying the family & indoctrinating children let’s not help them but hold their feet to a particularly hot fire.
There is a logic; better attention, healthier meals. But if you only had £1 to spend would school meals be it?
It has to be means tested. Those in need should get help. All taxpayers would be supporting this, even those on low incomes. They aren't "free meals". I'll caveat it by saying part of the means testing should be whether or not the parents smoke and are spending money on tobacco products (non-essential items that have no benefit whatsoever) each week that could feed their kids. Get your priorities right.
They are not free meals, they are paid for by the already overburdened tax payer. If you can’t fulfill the basic task of feeding your children, you shouldn’t be having any.