During the debate on the 2024 Spring Memorandum, members of the House of Representatives from D66, the SP, DENK, Volt and GroenLinks-PvdA submitted a motion to secure funding for school meals. The School Meals Programme will end in 2025, and no funding has been allocated in the outline coalition agreement to extend the programme. The motion stated that school meals make a substantial contribution to the livelihood security of children and parents and called for the scheme to be extended on a structural basis.
About the motion
The motion notes that since the beginning of 2023, almost 350,000 children growing up in poverty have been receiving a healthy meal at school or a grocery card for use at home.
The motion considers that:
- the school meals have been successfully evaluated, showing, among other things, that children have more energy and concentration, eat a more varied and healthier diet, and experience less stress;
- school meals make a substantial contribution to the livelihood security of children and parents;
- the coalition agreement contains no funds for continuation in 2025, meaning that from January onwards, 350,000 children could once again be at risk of going to school hungry.
Therefore, the sponsors of the motion requested that, when elaborating the coalition agreement, the government ensure that school meals are extended on a structural basis. To provide funding, the sponsors suggested, for example, examining tax schemes that have received negative evaluations, tax measures that improve public health, measures to increase labour participation among older people, or the (accelerated) abolition of fossil fuel subsidies.
The four new governing parties, PVV, VVD, BBB and NSC, voted against the motion, as did JA21, SGP and FVD.