Tackling child hunger is about ‘equal access to opportunity in society’, says breakfast club scheme boss

Tackling child hunger is “about equal access to opportunity in society”, according to the head of a nationwide breakfast club scheme.

Richard Hutton, who leads a programme providing tens of thousands of pupils with breakfast every day, told The Independent it is “hugely unfair” that some pupils arrive at school in an unfit state to learn due to food poverty.

Mr Hutton made his remarks after new research from YouGov and the Greggs Foundation painted a stark picture of food poverty during the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting impact on children’s education.

The poll found nearly one-third of parents with children aged four to 11 years old have prioritised their children’s breakfast over their own at least once a week.

Meanwhile, 18 per cent say they have struggled to afford food for their families since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the survey of nearly 1,000 parents in May.

Mr Hutton said tackling child hunger was “about levelling up, fundamentally”, and “making sure that people have equal access to opportunity in our society”.

“There are children who, through no fault of their own, are on the back foot right from the start,” the foundation’s trustee told The Independent.

“They’ve got the opportunity to learn and they’re being offered the education, but if they’re arriving at school and they’re not ready to take that opportunity, then that’s hugely unfair.”

At the heart of it, he said, is ensuring children can make the most of the education available to them through being “settled and ready to learn”.

“It’s a really simple thing – but it’s absolutely crucial that it’s addressed,” added Mr Hutton, whose scheme runs breakfast clubs in hundreds of schools across the country.

The new YouGov research found more than one-third of the hundreds of primary school teachers polled believe more pupils are turning up to school hungry in the morning since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

Nearly all of those teachers believe this has affected concentration and tiredness in school, while just over three-quarters said it had made behaviour worse.

Most of those who thought more children were turning up hungry said this had impacted performance in school.

The foundation’s Breakfast Club Appeal is asking customers to donate 25p with purchases over the next two weeks to provide a free breakfast to a child in need.

“I keep telling myself that one of these days, there will be a need to do less ... surely we can solve this because it’s a relatively low-cost problem as well,” Mr Hutton said.

“If you ever look at the cost of running a breakfast club, only a third of the cost is food. The other two-thirds is the staffing to run it,” he said.

“If you can encourage people from your community to come and help, then it makes it very, very cost-effective.”

Last month, a survey suggested nearly 2 million children have been short of food in the UK since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

A high-profile campaign led by Manchester United and England footballer Marcus Rashford to end child food poverty also took off during the Covid-19 pandemic, leading to a government U-turn on providing free school meals during school holidays.

Earlier this month, Lord Lebedev told the House of Lords that one of the “bleakest impacts” of Covid-19 was “the surge in hunger”.

The crossbench peer, who is a major shareholder in The Independent and owns sister title the Evening Standard, said: “Perhaps it does need an outsider to say this – we are a rich country and children should not be going to school hungry.”

Echoing Lord Lebedev’s comments on child hunger, Mr Hutton said: “You imagine as society sort of modernises and becomes more wealthy over time that this shouldn’t be an issue, but it clearly is.”

According to data last year, child poverty reached a 12-year high even before the pandemic began.

Towards the end of last year, the UK’s human rights watchdog warned that the Covid-19 crisis was “exacerbating existing inequalities” and having a “devastating” impact on children’s wellbeing.