Call for free school meals to be extended is defeated
MPS have voted down a bid to extend free school meals over the school holidays – a move called for by Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford MBE.
Had it been passed, the motion would have fed more than 1.4million children during their time off from school until Easter 2021.
The bid, which was tabled by Labour, was defeated by 322 votes to 261 – with a majority of 61.
These are the Bristol region MPs who voted against the motion:
Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke)
Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset)
Luke Hall (Thornbury and Yate) John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare). These are the Bristol region MPs who voted for the motion:
» Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West)
» Darren Jones (Bristol North West)
» Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East)
» Karin Smyth (Bristol South) Downing Street had ruled out a late U-turn after Boris Johnson repeatedly dodged pleas from MPs to support Mr Rashford’s campaign to guarantee meals for the poorest children as the pandemic’s second wave hits.
The England and Manchester United striker, who forced a U-turn on the same issue in the summer, said children would go to bed that night “not only hungry but feeling like they do not matter”.
He appealed to MPs to put aside their differences, saying: “This is not politics, this is humanity.
“We talk about the devastating impact of Covid-19 but, if projections are anything to go by, child food poverty has the potential to become the greatest pandemic the country has ever faced. We must start working together and unite to protect our most vulnerable children.”
Shadow Education Secretary Kate Green said the Tories had let down struggling families and urged the Prime Minister to drop his opposition to extending the free school meals scheme.
“Boris Johnson and the Conservatives have badly let down more than one million children and their families,” she said.
“No child should go hungry over the holidays, but the Government is blocking the action needed to prevent this.”
Child Poverty Action Group Chief Executive Alison Garnham said the country had plummeted to new lows “if in the midst of a pandemic we decide we can’t make sure children in the lowest income families have a nutritious meal in the middle of the day”.
“Tonight’s vote means more children going without and more desperately anxious parents – just as a coronavirus winter approaches,” she said.
“In short it ducks our moral responsibility to protect the country’s most vulnerable children.”
The result came after a day of furious clashes, with disquiet from some Tories over the failure to act to help the poorest children.
A Labour analysis found nearly 900,000 children in Covid hotspots will miss out on free school meals unless the Government extends the scheme.
Some 61 per cent of the over 1.4 million children eligible for free school meals are living in Tier 2 and Tier 3 areas, according to House of Commons Library figures.