It’s clear that children that have been fed properly will do better at school. Hungry children cannot learn. They cannot focus on their lessons, they won’t take in what they are being taught, and so their longer term outcomes as individuals (and for the UK as a society) won’t be as good. And yet the conversation about properly fed school children in the UK is stuck, stymied by partisanship.
This is, in part, because of the framing of the issue. That’s in our control to change, and we found a way to do it in our work for Sustain. Through a series of in-depth interviews, we spoke to members of three political parties, senior civil servants, and former special advisors. We discovered what the different perspectives had in common, and what limits exist to their cooperation.
We suggested pragmatic ways to frame the issue, that would allow politicians with different ideological perspectives to engage with the policy area constructively. Our recommendations to Sustain included how to frame the debate (especially parliamentary engagements), messaging and messengers, and what detailed policy work needed to be done to enhance the proposal.