Sadiq Khan: 'Free school meals meant I was never hungry - we have to feed our poorest children'

London Mayor Sadiq Khan writes in the Mirror about how we must protect our country's poorest children by providing free school meals so that they can flourish

According to Khan (

Image: Getty Images)

A few weeks ago, I came across a story that stopped me dead.

It was about a child in the London Borough of Lewisham who was seen pretending to eat from an empty lunchbox.

This child was not entitled to free school meals and did not want his friends to know that his parents could not afford to provide him with a packed lunch.

So, instead of talking, they kept their heads down, motioning to eat imaginary food, hoping no one would notice.

Not only was this story heartbreaking to read, but it reminded me of the shame and embarrassment I often felt as a child in the separate queue for those enjoying school meals free.

Even though it was humiliating for other kids to know that my parents didn't have a lot of money, at least I had access to a free meal, which meant I was never hungry.< /p>

Sadiq Khan, center, and two of his brothers (

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The fact that all these years later, the children of our country are still enduring these same feelings - and that the situation has only deteriorated further, with so many people now suffering from hunger - should trouble us all and be the trigger for a lot of soul-searching.

We have to ask ourselves how, in a society as wealthy as ours, we have an estimated 2.5 million children living in households that have experienced food insecurity. This includes around 400,000 children in London who are hungry.

Politics is fundamentally about priorities. And if the government cannot prioritize the