Swingeing government cuts to the welfare system could leave over 350,000 impoverished children without free school meals, a leading charity warned on Thursday.
An analysis by the Children's Society found that 2.2 million English schoolchildren were living below the poverty line, with more than 1.2 million currently missing out on the dinners which are linked to low-income benefits.
If a proposed earnings threshold of £7,500 was introduced for free school meals 120,000 families in England - around 350,000 school-age children in total - would lose out, it said.
Government plans for a system of universal credit to replace the current benefits and tax credits system could mean that hundreds of thousands of families could be left with lower entitlements.
Such decisions risked creating a "cliff edge" with parents having to slash their working hours or take a pay cut to keep their benefits, it warned.
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Coalition to rob poor kids' meals.
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