Child hunger should be more than an embarrassment to this government

Over the past decade, Conservative governments have moved on from denial to embarrassment when confronted with the evidence that children are going hungry in one of the richest countries in the world.  

The Cameron government talked a good game about how we were all “in it together” as it sought to balance the public finances after the financial crash. But when asked about the growth of food banks, ministers for a long time simply pretended that it was not happening. They eventually had to accept reality and some ministers even visited food banks, but they insisted that child hunger was more complicated than simply the product of their policy.  

Today, we have made progress in that the prime minister responds like a scalded cat to shortcomings in provision for needy children. Yesterday, we reported that some of the food boxes for children entitled to free school meals failed to meet the Department for Education’s specifications for quantity and quality. Marcus Rashford, the footballer who knew what it was like to go hungry as a child, and who has campaigned for provision for children while schools are closed, took up the issue.  

Within hours, Boris Johnson’s spokesperson described some of the examples reported by parents and journalists as “completely unacceptable”. The Department for Education was looking into the problem urgently and Vicky Ford, the minister for children, was dispatched to talk to the companies responsible.  

It should not have come to this, but at least the government’s response started off on the right lines, by acknowledging the problem and promising to sort it out. We would have more confidence if Mr Johnson did not have a record of dragging his heels over provision for children during the holidays. Last summer, he resisted Mr Rashford’s pleas and insisted that the government was giving local councils extra funds to meet extra needs – before eventually caving in and reluctantly doing the right thing.  

But the government is still lagging behind reality. It is a reality on which The Independent has consistently and forcefully reported. It is a reality that our readers recognise, with their generous support for our Help The Hungry campaign – a campaign that will continue for as long as it is needed. Even with the welcome increase in universal credit during the pandemic, too many people, and too many children, are still falling through the cracks in the welfare system.  

The government seems to realise that public opinion about companies profiteering from child poverty in a crisis is likely to be unforgiving. But ministers need to do much more than simply sort out the immediate problem of corner-cutting in providing food boxes. They need to recognise that child poverty is a deep blight on our society that requires sustained and vigorous action over several years.