School meal debt cancelled

Today Aberlour welcomes the Scottish Government measure put in place to cancel school meal debt. This follows an extensive joint campaign with The Scottish Sun to ‘Sort the School Meal Debt’ for low income families.

Chief Executive, SallyAnn Kelly OBE says:–

“Cancelling school meal debt is the right thing to do. We welcome the commitment from the First Minister to write off school meal debt for 30,000 children across Scotland. This will provide some relief to low income families struggling to feed their children in the midst of a cost of living crisis.

However, we know that too many families face food insecurity every day and worry about feeding their children in school or at home. School meal debt is a symptom of families simply not having enough money to provide for themselves. So we must make sure that we put in place measures to prevent school meal debt in the first place. Raising income thresholds for free school meal eligibility for thousands more low income working families  is crucial to preventing school meal debt and tackling hidden school hunger for children.

This month MSPs voted for a new law to protect children’s rights. That includes children’s right to food. That we have school meal debt and hidden school hunger at all in Scotland shows us that right is simply not being met for children. The government must now make sure children’s right to food is upheld and that Scotland does not breach the very commitments we have signed up to.

Therefore, we continue to urge the First Minister to commit to extending free school meal eligibility for all low income working families to stop children being burdened with school meal debt and to make Scotland a country where no child goes hungry.”