Children’s charities branded the government’s new free primary school meals programme as not good enough yesterday while the number of families living in destitution kept growing.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg was keen to show the new £1 billion scheme — feeding around 2 million children at primary level — was an undeniable success.

“The evidence, and this has been exhaustively analys-ed, piloted, examined, is that 

giving a healthy hot meal at lunchtime is as, if not more, effective than many of the, say, literacy and numeracy initiatives which have been undertaken in the past in the classroom,” he said.

But many organisations battling child poverty said the flagship Lib Dem policy was too little too late.

“The extension of free school meals to all infants in the country is a positive step in the fight against child poverty,” said Children’s Society chief executive Matthew Reed.

“But for thousands of poor children in junior and secondary schools, nothing has changed.”

Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) also welcomed the policy but echoed the concerns.

“We remain worried that we’re facing a substantial child poverty crisis in the years ahead because of other policy decisions taken since 2010, and fear the child poverty targets will not be met by 2020,” said CPAG chief executive Alison Garnham.

With cuts hitting most local budgets thick and fast, many are sceptical of the coalition’s attempt to give a hot lunch to all children between five and seven years of age across England’s 16,500 primary schools.

Recent Local Government Association research revealed that almost half of the 75 councils surveyed would not be able to afford the initiative.

Most schools required structural work in order to provide hot meals and the Department for Education was austere with its financial support.

The total cost of bringing these schools up to scratch would reach around £25.9 million.

In the last few years the rise in extreme poverty has seen the number of foodbank users rise by 163 per cent.

Malnutrition-related illnesses such as gout and rickets have also seen a dramatic return according to the latest figures from the UK Faculty of Public Health.

Ms Garnham concluded that “the argument about investing in children, used to justify the extension in free school meals, should be applied right across government to protect vulnerable families.”