UNIVERSAL free school meals must be introduced, the National Education Union has said, after a new poll indicated that a growing number of teachers are stepping in to provide food for hungry pupils.

A survey for the charity FareShare suggested that 28 per cent of teachers in England had provided food to at least one pupil in the summer term due to concerns for their welfare.

The poll of around 10,000 teachers found that 36 per cent of those working in more deprived areas reported handing out food to pupils, compared with 23 per cent in more affluent areas.

North-west England saw the largest increase in teachers bringing in food for pupils, increasing from 29 per cent last year to 34 per cent this year. 

NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede said: “It is a tragedy that there are so many children sat in classrooms while enduring gnawing hunger.

“The solution to a child being too hungry to learn is to feed them. Rather than leaving this to teachers to fund from their own pockets, the government must ensure that all children have the nutrition they need to thrive.

“That is why we urge the government to invest in the next generation with free school meals for all.”

According to research from the Child Poverty Action Group, around 900,000 children who live in poverty miss out on free school meals due to restrictive eligibility criteria. 

With growing numbers of children plunged into poverty, the government has faced calls to scrap the two-child benefit cap, which restricts universal credit and child tax credit to just two kids.

According to the Resolution Foundation, scrapping it would lift 490,000 children out of poverty overnight — but Labour maintains that doing so would be too expensive.

A government spokesperson said that its child poverty task force is “looking at how to increase household income, bring down essential costs, and tackle the negative experience of living in poverty.

“This comes alongside plans to roll out free breakfast clubs in every primary school so children start the day ready to learn, and turning the minimum wage into a real living wage to make work pay.”