Rashford forces PM to apologise for debacle
PRIME Minister Boris Johnson was forced to make a grovelling apology and order a “full review of the supply chain” after the food parcel scandal blew up in his face.
The Tory government was accused of “putting families last” by Labour leader Keir Starmer after the meagre contents of food parcels for home lunches for kids were revealed.
Photographs on social media showed that firms such as Chartwells are sending parcels that are woefully inadequate to English families.
Influential Man United striker Marcus Rashford – who is running a drive to get free school meals to children who need them – took the PM to task in a phone call and later tweeted: “He has assured me that he is committed to correcting the issue with the food hampers and that a full review of the supply chain is taking place.
“He agrees that images of hampers being shared on Twitter are unacceptable.”
Education Secretary Gavin Williamson told a committee of MPs he was “absolutely disgusted” after seeing a picture of a meagre food parcel delivered to a disabled mother-of-two. He warned companies that supply poor free school meal parcels will be named and shamed.
A Chartwells spokesman said: “We have had time to investigate the picture circulated on Twitter. For clarity this shows five days of free school lunches (not 10 days) and the charge for food, packing and distribution was actually £10.50 and not £30 as suggested.
“However, in our efforts to provide thousands of food parcels a week at extremely short notice we are very sorry the quantity has fallen short in this instance.”