Hunger doesn't clock off for the summer holidays

The National

8 hours ago

It's what drove me and all Scottish Green MSPs to make expanding free school meals a priority in recent Budget negotiations.
Last week, the Education Secretary and I announced the result of those negotiations.
From August, thousands more young people will benefit from a free school meal thanks to our new pilot programme. Eligibility for free school meals will be expanded to S1-S3 pupils who receive the Scottish Child Payment (SCP) in eight council areas across Scotland.
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This builds on what Scottish Green MSPs achieved in previous years, namely the expansion of universal free school meals to P4 and P5 pupils, as well as the ongoing expansion to all P6 and P7 pupils who receive the SCP.
These policies are the direct result of Green influence in government and Parliament. They show the transformational power voters will hold next May when deciding who they send to Holyrood for the next five years.
It has a huge impact when you elect MSPs committed to changing Scotland for the better.
In this case, free school meals do more than fill stomachs. They fuel learning, reduce stigma, and ease pressure on hard-pressed families during a brutal cost of living crisis. They're an investment not just in individual pupils but in a fairer and healthier society.
But we can and must go further. Scotland should be leading the way in delivering universal free school meals across the whole of our education system. That's what the Scottish Greens are working towards.
Another major Green achievement for Scotland's children was our cancellation of school meal debts. Almost £3 million has now been wiped off the books after years of campaigning on the issue.
For thousands of families, it has brought urgent relief at a time of growing hardship.
As the Scottish Greens' education spokesperson, I first published research back in 2021 which showed that more than £1 million of school meal debt was being carried by families. As the cost of living crisis deepened, that figure soared.
But the emotional toll was even greater. I've heard directly from teachers who dreaded chasing children for money that their families simply didn't have.
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I've talked to parents who went without so that their children didn't have to face shame in the lunch hall.
No child should be forced to learn under the weight of that stress and embarrassment. No teacher should be put in that impossible situation.
That's why I worked so hard to ensure that this debt was wiped out. Cancelling it was clearly the right thing to do. It's something the Greens are incredibly proud to have delivered. But again we believe in doing more than just wiping the slate clean only to see those debts build back up.
We believe in changing the system which created the problem in the first place. That's why we will continue to push for universal free school meals for every child from nursery to the end of high school. Contrast this with the attitude of successive UK governments, both Conservative and Labour.
Westminster politicians continue to dig their heels in on the indefensible two-child benefit cap and associated 'rape clause', a policy that has directly plunged hundreds of thousands of children into poverty.
Research from the Child Poverty Action Group has shown that lifting this cap would lift 250,000 children out of poverty across the UK. Yet they refuse to act, instead prioritising their race to the bottom style of politics, demonising the poor and disabled, while succumbing to their own vested interests.
Their silence speaks volumes. It shows us exactly how deep the commitment to austerity and inequality runs in the halls of Westminster.
While Scotland has limited powers to undo the damage they inflict, we do have the means to make a meaningful difference, and that's exactly what Scotland's Green MSPs and councillors have been doing.
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Of course, this work is never finished. Hunger doesn't clock off at the end of a parliamentary session and neither can we.
The Scottish Greens will continue to fight for policies that put people first – and we're not afraid to say that it's the super-rich who should pay more in tax to pay for this.
At the end of the day, the choices we make reflect the kind of country we want to be.
Do we want to be a nation where children go hungry while their parents work two or three jobs for poverty wages? Or do we want to be a country that invests in its young people, supports families, and builds a future based on fairness and compassion?
The Scottish Greens know where we stand and we're proud to keep fighting for the Scotland that our children and young people deserve.