Thirteen children gather eagerly around a pile of brown paper bags crammed with sandwiches, yoghurts and fruit in a youth centre on the deprived north-west fringes of Bristol. This holiday club on the sprawling Lawrence Weston estate is being supplied with free lunches as part of a charity-funded push to help low-income families cope with the extra costs of feeding children over the six-week school break.

'They hadn’t eaten all day': food banks tackle holiday hunger Read more

NHS healthcare assistant Sandra Thomas watches two of her four children, who have just finished a two-hour archery and gymnastics session, tuck into their lunch. She has been to almost all the free activities on the estate so far this summer and is grateful food is provided. “I would struggle by the end of week if I had to buy their lunches. Sometimes we can’t afford to get bread – we’ve really got to budget over the holidays,” she says. “It is quite stressful.” Thomas, 40, works weekends while her husband, who is a construction engineer, works Monday to Friday. “The kids are not on free school meals because me and my husband work, but financially we do struggle,” she says.

Jane Watson, 45, whose two children are entitled to free school meals, also finds it hard over the school holidays. “Obviously, you are spending more money. They are like, ‘can you buy this, can you buy that’ in the shops,” she says, as her nine-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son delve into their bags. “This helps make ends meet. It’s not so bad for me because my husband works, but there are a lot of one-parent families that struggle.”

None of this surprises community worker Donna Sealey. She regularly gives leftover lunches to desperate families at the end of sessions. “We see really hungry kids. Yesterday the lunch was delayed and kids were complaining because they had not had any breakfast. The kids are also eating more than one lunch – typically a quarter of them will ask if we have anything else,” she says. “This isn’t a third world country, nobody should be living like this.”

Across the whole city, nearly 11,000 children on free school meals during term time are thought to be at risk of holiday hunger, according to local charity Feeding Bristol. And it is a problem that appears to be getting worse. North Bristol’s five Trussell Trust food banks have seen a steep rise in the number of children they supply with emergency food over the summer, from 68 children in the first three weeks of the school holidays last year to 118 children in the same period this year – an increase of 73%.

Yet Bristol is just one of many areas denied central government funding for holiday schemes to provide free meals to some of the country’s most deprived children. Under pressure from charities and MPs concerned about rising numbers of parents using food banks outside of term time, the government announced last year it would fund a series of pilot projects through its holiday activities and food programme to ensure disadvantaged children receive a healthy diet during school holidays.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Free summer activities and lunches at the Ambition Lawrence Weston community centre, Bristol. Photograph: Adrian Sherratt/The Guardian

But the majority of funding bids from the most deprived areas in England were rejected, according to data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the Guardian and Channel 4 News. The findings show that 88% of bids – 81 projects covering 64 English local authority areas – were unsuccessful, despite the fact that just under one-third of rejected bids were in areas with the highest rates of child poverty, including Tower Hamlets – where 33.6% of pupils are on free school meals, more than anywhere else in England – Hackney and Blackpool, where, respectively, 27.7% and 25.5% of pupils are on free school meals. Overall, there are nearly 500,000 children at risk of holiday hunger this summer across the rejected local authority areas, the findings show.

The figures underline the sharp growth in child poverty: the latest analysis shows that 4.1 million children are living below the breadline.

Yet prevalence of child poverty doesn’t seem to have influenced the government’s funding decisions for food programmes. Of the 11 successful bids, four were in areas with relatively small proportions of children on free school meals: bids from Hampshire and Leicestershire were successful even though they fall within the lowest quartile of pupils on free school meals in England.

The mayor of Tower Hamlets, John Biggs, says the London borough has had to scale back its plans for the summer. “The funding would have allowed us to have a pretty comprehensive arrangement, giving kids a healthy breakfast and healthy lunch,” he says. “We are putting on some clubs ourselves. But it is pretty meagre compared to the resources we would have had – we are spending in the region of £90,000 rather than the £1.2m we were looking for.”

He adds it’s hard to understand why an area where more than half of children grow up in poverty has been passed over. “We have the highest rate of child poverty of any local authority in the country,” he says. “It is outrageous that the bid was rejected.”

In Blackpool, the council has only been able to find just under £120,000 for its own holiday hunger clubs. Kathryn Benson, cabinet member for schools, says the decision was disappointing as it is the most deprived council in the country. “The long summer break can hit families particularly hard as they need to budget for two additional meals a day alongside the additional expense of keeping their children entertained,” she says.

Hackney’s £500,000 bid would have fed 2,700 children across the borough. Instead, the council is relying on an unfunded charity which distributes surplus donations from supermarkets to four youth centres. “We are doing everything we can to support our most vulnerable families. But we know that more needs to be done. That is why it is particularly disappointing that central government has failed to provide this vital funding for Hackney, at a time when our residents and families need it most,” says Chris Kennedy, the borough’s cabinet member for families.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The mayor of Tower Hamlets, John Biggs (above), says the London borough has had to scale back its plans to provide free meals this summer. Photograph: Hannah McKay/PA

Manchester, which also lost out, has managed to fund some free meals at holiday clubs. Luthfur Rahman, cabinet member for culture and leisure, says holiday hunger is a growing problem in the city. “Many organisations have come together in Manchester, including the voluntary sector and schools to fill the gap,” he says. “However, this is a sticking plaster at best.”

Even among the successful councils that have been able to expand their holiday provision to reach more children at risk, some feel the government’s programme does not get to the root of the problem. The deputy leader of Gateshead council, Catherine Donovan, says: “If the government is really serious about tackling this issue and looking after the children of Gateshead, they should give parents the dignity of secure work and a benefits system that truly supports those in need.”

The Department for Education says this year’s pilot will inform the government approach: “This year we invested £9m in summer holiday clubs, providing activities and hot meals for disadvantaged children. This pilot will help show how we coordinate free provision in different areas, and help us decide how best to intervene in the future.”

But the children’s commissioner for England, Anne Longfield, says this isn’t quick enough and wants all schools in poor areas to provide activities and nourishing food over the holidays. “This issue is not new, and while we understand that the government needs to find the best ways of delivering with public funds, they are late tackling this issue. The human cost of just running pilots in a small number of areas to ‘work out what works best’ is, sadly, too many other children going hungry,” she says.

Back in Bristol, Feeding Bristol has had to drastically cut back the 100,000 meals it was planning to deliver. “We have the highest number of children claiming free school meals in the south-west,” says Andy Street, Feeding Bristol chair. “If we had got the funding, there is no question we would have fed significantly more children. There are a good number of children we are not able to help this year.”

The charity had to organise a last-ditch appeal in May. It managed to raise £125,000 and with the help of 450 unpaid volunteers is delivering 55,000 meals to existing clubs in Bristol. While Street is incredibly proud of the city’s response, he admits relying on donations from businesses and volunteers’ time is not a long-term solution. “We shouldn’t need to do this – we need to get to a place where every family has access to good-quality food,” he says.

Case study: ‘If it wasn’t for the food bank, these two would be eating pretty much nothing’



Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘I mostly dread the school holidays coming around.’ Katie Harris in Horfield, north Bristol. Photograph: Tom Wall

Part-time school cook Katie Harris gently strokes the dark hair of her fidgeting two-year-old boy while she waits patiently with her nine-year-old daughter for an emergency food parcel in a church hall in Horfield, north Bristol.

“I mostly dread the school holidays coming around,” she says, retrieving a sandal her son has launched across the room in frustration. “They get fed in school for free but when they are at home you have got to pay for everything.”

Harris earns around £500 a month from her job, working less than 16 hours a week in one of the city’s private schools. But with a child typically costing an extra £30-40 a week to feed over the holidays she has been forced to use her local food bank.

“If it wasn’t for this food bank these two would be eating pretty much nothing. It is quite shocking,” she says quietly. “It shouldn’t be like this in this day and age.”

Harris finds the supermarket shop very difficult. “I have to put some stuff back when I’m shopping,” she says. “I can’t get any luxuries for myself like a pack of those biscuits,” she says gesturing towards a selection box provided by the food bank. “They would be a luxury.”

One of the food bank volunteers brings five carrier bags full of pasta, tins of soup and cartons of long-life milk. “I’m managing but without places like this it wouldn’t be possible,” she says while loading up her son’s buggy. “There are times when it is me or the kids that get fed. You got to put the kids first so I’ve gone to bed hungry.”

• This article was amended on 16 August 2019 to remove a reference to universal credit.