Write to letters@thetimes.co.ukSir, The crude banding of children according to family income and the means testing for eligibility for free school meals is scandalous (“Free school meals for all younger pupils face the chop”, Mar 24; letter, Mar 25). It pays no heed to the huge number of families in the middle category whose incomes sit fractionally above the poverty line and way below the ability to pay for a school lunch. Parents of these families, by and large modestly paid and hard-working, will now be compelled to suffer an additional strain on their weekly bills by having to pay for a school lunch, often their children’s only hot meal of the day, or provide a packed lunch, inevitably resorting to
