MPs say government is out-of-touch for putting Waitrose and M&S on free school meal vouchers scheme but not Aldi and Lidl

MPs have accused the government of being detached from reality after it prioritised premium food retailers like Marks & Spencer and Waitrose over discount chains for inclusion in its free school meal voucher programme.

The Commons Environment and Food Committee said the system, designed to ensure children from low income families were fed while schools were closed for the pandemic, was set up with commendable speed in response to the pandemic.

But they criticised the design of the scheme, which meant the vouchers initially could not be used at supermarkets like Aldi and Lidl or local corner shops, but could be spent at M&S and Waitrose — where the vouchers would buy significant less.

MPs accepted that “some teething problems were inevitable” with the scheme, but said they were “disappointed at the apparent lack of willingness to quickly adapt the scheme in response to the issues that emerged”.

“The system has been beset by significant problems, ultimately leading to about a third of children experiencing greater food insecurity in the first month,” they said in a report released on Thursday after taking evidence from food poverty experts.

“A particular problem was the government’s immediate reliance on the larger retailers to participate in the scheme, with discounters and convenience stores excluded for technical reasons, even when they were able to offer workable voucher schemes which would have helped more children. There was a need for closer collaboration on the part of both government and retailers.

“The government did not sufficiently consider the realities of where families dependent on free school meals were most likely to shop for food. Although more retailers were added to the scheme, we consider that this took too long.”

The MPs are calling on the government to appoint a minister to food security and consult on whether a right to food should be enshrined in legislation.

And they said the food insecurity situation exacerbated by the pandemic was likely to get worse before it got better.

Stephanie Wood, CEO of the charity School Food Matters, told the committee in evidence that “lots of people are really angry that DfE has defaulted to the big six supermarkets, two of which are really irrelevant when it comes to families on low income: Marks & Sparks and Waitrose”.

The Children’s Food Campaign and School Food Matters had told the committee that “many lower income families are likely to shop at Aldi, Lidl, Co-op or chains of independent/convenience stores”.

Other problems included the fact that few of the retailers on the scheme allowed vouchers to be redeemed online, but those that did often had a significant minimum spend, making them prohibitively expensive for families with stretched budgets. After a significant delay Aldi, McColls, Iceland and the Company Shop group eventually joined the scheme.

Neil Parish, chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee, said: “The lockdown may have eased, but problems with food security are far from over. Food banks and other food redistribution organisations have reacted heroically to a shocking spike in demand for food aid, but this problem is likely to get worse before it gets better. It is therefore essential that the government appoints a new minister for food security who will stop this issue falling between the cracks.

“The government’s actions to lock-down the country and close businesses were necessary, but they had huge impacts on the food sector and on food security. Defra’s response once the crisis hit was commendable, but despite warnings from other countries, it seemed as though the government was constantly playing catch-up in trying to support the food industry during this crisis. The pandemic also highlighted our reliance on key workers, and I unreservedly thank those in the food supply chain whose work kept the nation fed throughout the crisis.

“In the future, the government will need to communicate better with the public. The voucher scheme for free school meals failed to recognise where families using them were likely to shop and encouraging everyone to shop online, when supermarkets had warned they would struggle to meet demand, set the scene for public frustration. We want the government to learn lessons for the future.”

Government says it worked hard to ensure as many supermarkets as possible could be part of the scheme. A government spokesperson said: “As we have seen in recent months, the UK has a large, diverse and highly resilient food supply chain – which is able to cope with unprecedented pressures.

“During this time the government has worked closely with the food industry to prepare for a range of scenarios and has invested record levels of funding to help people get the food they need.

“Our Covid-19 taskforce has also brought together expertise across government to tackle the extraordinary circumstances of this pandemic and ensure those most vulnerable in our society are protected.”