THE Liz Truss government’s mismanagement of the economy may be noteworthy in the speed with which it has precipitated a decline in living standards and brought the country to the brink of economic collapse, but the underlying features of the crisis are nothing new.  

Truss’s government is drawing the threads of the past decade into the present to weave a new pattern.

The cost of living reached critical levels even before the new government came to power — and is the consequence of more than a decade of Conservative transfer of wealth from the poorest to the richest in society.  

Now, as before, it is the least well-off in society who will be hardest hit by the cost-of-living crisis.

In education, we have seen rising levels of child poverty and vanishing levels of support for families who need it.

Currently 3.9 million children are living in poverty. That equates to 27 per cent of all children in Britain, or eight in a class of 30. Our members are seeing the impacts of this first hand.  

Poverty at home is the strongest statistical predictor of how well a child will achieve at school.

In the most deprived areas, boys can expect to live 19 fewer years of their lives in “good” health and girls 20 fewer years than children in the least-deprived areas.

The Millennium Cohort Study shows that poor children are four times more likely to develop a mental health problem by the age of 11.  

One of the most concerning impacts of child poverty is the levels of child hunger our members are seeing day in, day out. In April 2022, 7.3 million adults live in households that had gone short of food.  

This includes 2.6 million children. Current free school meal provision isn’t meeting the requirements of our society and is dividing children into rich and poor.

Restrictive eligibility, complicated registration procedures and the stigma built into a system that separates rich and poor mean that children are missing out on existing support such as free school meals.  

The cost-of-living crisis will mean that families across the income distribution will be worse off in the coming years.

For many, including those not eligible for government support, this will mean a devastating fall in living standards.  

More and more families will be dragged into poverty and hardship and something fundamental must change.

School meals can be a way of ensuring that all children receive a nutritious, hot meal every day.

Proper nutrition means that children can focus on their learning and their attainment improves. They are also central to improving wellbeing and behaviour.  

This is why the National Education Union is calling for free school meals for all children in primary schools and asking colleagues across the trade union movement to support us and take action too.

We need all of us to be campaigning for the government to fund free school meals for every child in primary school, campaigning for urgent measures to eradicate child poverty through achieving higher incomes and co-ordinating a campaign of industrial action across the public and private sector to win pay rises and improve standards of living.