Human Rights Watch says UK government violated Gainsborough children's right to food in COVID-19 response

Children have gone hungry in Gainsborough due to Government failures during the COVID-29 crisis, according to a leading international human rights monitor.

Human Rights Watch says the Government violated children’s right to food when it introduced an ineffective supermarket voucher system to help those normally in receipt of free school meals.

Researchers interviewed food aid charities, teachers, catering managers, and legal specialists across the UK, including Katie Barry, head teacher at St George’s Primary School on Gainsborough’s Park Springs estate.

She called the voucher system “horrendous” and added: “When news broke that schools were closing, my first concern was food – learning came second. It feels awful to say, but we knew not having food would be the biggest issue for families.”

St George's headteacher, Katie Barry, left says the Government's replacement system for free school meals has been a dog's dinner.

Gainsborough was chosen as a focus for the report as it has multiple areas with high levels of deprivation.

Figures released by the Office of National Statistics last month found up to 44 per cent of children living in poverty in some parts of town, the highest rate in Lincolnshire.

The Government’s system was introduced two weeks after the start of lockdown and has seen families unable to access the online system, left waiting weeks for vouchers or unable to redeem them.

Katie said: “One family took £15 of vouchers to the local supermarket and were told the supermarket only accepts them in multiples of £10, so they would have to come back next week. It may seem like a small detail, but it’s demeaning.”

Many schools in England may also be left footing the bill for feeding children outside of the scheme, as many have had to.

Human Rights Watch researcher Kartik Raj said: “The Government’s failure to properly ensure all pupils had sufficient food as soon as it closed schools means children have been going hungry.

“The government should scrap its reliance on the flawed voucher system it has used in England and instead follow good practices developed in other parts of the UK.”

The Department for Education told Human Rights Watch that “no system of this magnitude to provide free school meals has been implemented in such a short period of time before.”