http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/parents-could-forced-pay-children-7357886?ICID=FB_mirror_main

I found this article while scrolling through social media a few days ago, and was appalled by what I read. A council in South Wales are proposing to charge parents for sending their children to school with a packed lunch due to the amount that it is costing them for the clean up of these lunches. This is budget cutting to ridiculous extremes.

There are parents who simply cannot afford to pay for school lunches, hence why they give their children a packed lunch. While some may argue that that is the reason for Free School Meals (FSM) benefit, however, not all families who are entitled to FSM claim them, sometimes through ignorance to the fact that they are entitled.

When reading through some comments on the site, it is clear that I am not the only one appalled by this proposal. Many others who have read the article have also noted that it is some schools’ policy for the children to take their rubbish home, which allows parents to monitor what they eat at lunchtime. If this is the case, it makes it even harder to see the reason behind this proposed “Sandwich tax”, even if the council are saving money.

This proposal enrages me, and while it will apparently save the council £174,000 a year, it would be interesting to see where that money will end up. I do not think that it is fair to pass costs on to parents because of budget cuts.