It's time to make "Holiday Hunger" history

Image: The Trussell Trust (April 2017)

There's been a big political story this week - and the long and short of it is that Manchester United striker Marcus Rashford is widely seen a hero while 322 Tory MPs are perceived as "scum".

You'll know what I'm talking about. Mr Rashford's articulate tweets in support of extending free school meals (FSMs) through school holidays during a pandemic situation led to Labour putting forward a motion to provide FSMs to children entitled to them during all holidays until Easter 2021.

Sadly, and predictably, MPs voted along party lines. Opposition parties supported to proposal, while Conservative MPs (with five exceptions) voted against. This has promoted widespread outrage: another footballer, Gary Lineker, summed it up in a tweet: "Yesterday they voted against helping to feed our hungriest children during a pandemic. Never thought I’d tweet that."

The criticism has come thick and fast and much has been pretty strong. Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner was overheard referring to Chris Clarkson MP as "scum"; while she later apologised for the comment this didn't prevent "Tory scum" trending on twitter. You may call me cynical, but I might suggest - with the outcome of the vote in an Opposition Day Debate never being in any real doubt - that a situation was deliberately engineered through which Tory MPs would make themselves look mean-spirited and hypocritical. In that respect, debating this at all and brining it to the floor of the Commons to be spoken against and voted down was a political masterstroke.

Of course, the Conservatives are mean-spirited and hypocritical. We didn't need this vote to tell us that. The criticism aimed towards them is not only justified - I echo it, not least as several Tory MPs have unwisely chosen to defend their stance in such a way as to suggest they are either ignorant or heartless. But there's something in the smugness and sanctinoniousness that doesn't really sit comfortably with me.

In the last few years, we've been hearing a lot more about "holiday hunger". It's not something new, although the pandemic and Mr Rashford have served to highlight the extent of the problem. Considering how the media have focused on the footballer, you'd be forgiven for thinking that, before Marcus Rashford talked about it, nobody was calling for free school meals in the holidays. Such an assumption would be incorrect. However grateful I am for a high profile footballer with the energy (and the relevant experience) to argue convincingly for change, he's not really saying anything that's not been said before.

For me, that's the tragedy. The fact that the media tend to pay more attention to Premiership footballers than anti-poverty charities is to be expected. But the inescapable truth is that, in spite of significant efforts from charities and anti-poverty campaigns in the last few years to highlight the problem of "holiday hunger", none of our political parties have got to grips with the issues - at least, this isn't reflected in any formalised policy positions. While Labour's motion was welcome (as was support for it from the SNP, Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru and the Greens), it did not represent an attempt to deal with the long-term problem. It was purely focused on the pandemic situation, and only proposed extended the provision of FSMs until Easter 2021. 

However, "holiday hunger" is an issue not specifically related to the pandemic. Admittedly, the Covid-19 situation has worsened it but it has also helped to highlight the need for overdue and more permanent action. Neither is this, as some Tory MPs such as Kit Malthouse have suggested, an issue that can be dealt with purely through "the welfare system". It requires new, and longer-term, approaches. 

Many of those calling for FSMs to be provided outside of school time have been doing so for long before Covid-19 intruded into our lives. In February 2018, almost three years ago, South Lanarkshire Council introduced a "Food 365" scheme to ensure meals would be provided to children who needed them all year round. Wirral Council, in summer 2019, introduced a similar scheme to expand FSM entitlement. These are merely two examples. They were the product of lobbying from charities and campaign groups such as Feeding Britain, the Ashkaya Patra Project, Five Lamps, Street Games, PlayFair, FareShare, Centrestage, The Trussell Trust,  Dundee Bairns, Community Food Initiatives North East and Achieve More Scotland. This in not an exhaustive list. I am simply pointing to the plethora of voices that have for some time called for an extension of FSM provision.

Marcus Rashford would never seek to diminish the work these organisations have done. Indeed, he has worked very closely with FareShare and has served as their ambassador since March 2020. However the media, who refer to this push for change as Mr Rashford's personal campaign, are diminishing these other voices. This misplaced focus has also served to give the impression that the proposals are new and have been suggested in the context of the effect of Covid-19 on poorer families. While there is certainly a new sense of urgency, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that many have been proposing actions to tackle "holiday hunger" for many years.

I have in the past talked about my own experiences of poverty and homelessness. I first became aware of "holiday hunger" in the 1980s and I doubt it was a new phenomenon then. Obviously we didn't use such terminology at the time but I saw that for many parents, including my own, school holidays were something of a challenge. It's been a reality, ignored by many, for decades. Fortunately in recent years it's begun to become more widely acknowledged: a survey conducted by the National Union of Teachers (NUT) in April 2017 showed that 80% of teachers reported seeing the effects of "holiday hunger" and in early 2019 the British Medical Journal urged government action. Parliament itself debated "holiday hunger schemes" in November 2018 and as long ago as April 2017 the All Party Parliamentary Group on Hunger produced a report, Hungry Holidays, which made recommendations that have yet to be actioned.

These recommendations are interesting and include "a statutory requirement for local authorities to facilitate and coordinate the delivery of free meals...during school holidays, with utmost flexibility granted over the actual delivery methods...", "an adequate funding base... to enable local authorities to meet their statutory duties...",  "an annual budget of over £100,000 with which each local authority could counter holiday hunger", "ntional minimum standards laid down by the Department for Education, in respect of the safe and effective delivery of free meals... during school holidays", and "the measurement of hunger amongst children during school holidays". 

It's an excellent report and I endorse its conclusions - but has anyone outside of the parliamentary bubble or charitable sector heard about it, let alone read it? 

No doubt it feels good to criticise Conservative MPs for callously voting against extending FSMs to vulnerable children during a pandemic. I can understand, especially when some of those MPs happen to be Ben Bradley, Philip Davies, Esther McVey and Dehenna Davison. I appreciate that the many examples of shops and cafes banning such MPs from their premises feel like acts of local heroism (it's also very funny). But none of this actually does anything to alleviate hunger or poverty.

Indeed, the motion itself didn't go far enough to address what is not only a political issue but a human issue. It's a question of social justice. What is actually required is for opposition parties to adopt radical policy positions to address this historical injustice. None of us - neither Labour, not the SNP, nor the Lib Dems - have an official policy to deal with "holiday hunger", and it's time we did. We need to think beyond this pandemic, beyond Easter 2021, and towards creative longer-term solutions to making "holiday hunger" history. 

Conservative MPs who don't like listening to Marcus Rashford clearly haven't been interested in listening to the BMJ, the NUT, the APPG on Hunger or various other voices calling for similar action in recent years. That is not remotely surprising - there are none so deaf as those who do not wish to hear. However, against the backdrop of public anger there is now an opportunity to build a consensus that change is not only desirable but necessary. This opportunity, which people like Marcus Rashford have helped to create, must be seized. If we fail to do that, everything Mr Rashford has achieved to date will have been for nothing. 

To truly make this injustice history requires the root causes to be understood and addressed. However, there can be no denying that extending the provision of FSMs would make a significant difference. This can surely be achieved if opposition parties - and any Conservative rebels - are able to collaborate, work with local authorities and help to build a public desire for change that puts real pressure on a government already looking vulnerable on this. We should be able to put aside political differences and work together to put forward a progressive proposal to end "holiday hunger" once and for all. This is not only Marcus Rashford's campaign - it belongs to everyone who cares about defeating poverty.

I agree with the APPG's recommendation that solutions should be as locally-focused as possible and involving the independent sector. However, while this is something that local authorities are rightly looking to get to grips with, it also requires leadership from national government to ensure equality and quality of provision. When a sitting government refuses to rise to that responsibility, it is incumbent upon the opposition parties to step into the vacuum and provide that leadership, rather than opting to grandstand and jeer from the sidelines. 

Criticising others can feel cathartic but we need more than self-righteous indignation, however good a starting point that can be. We need something more than a Premiership footballer with a social conscience. We need more than Opposition Day Debates that provoke the Tories into displaying their true colours, but lack the power to effect any change. We need collaboration, imagination and a determination to create a fairer society in which, to quote the preamble to the Lib Dem constitution, "no-one is enslaved by poverty". 

Who's with me?