ChildrenNews could miss out over free meals

the changes.

Colne Valley MP Thelma Walker said she would be speaking in the House of Commons debate this morning in an attempt to persuade MPs to vote it down.

In her speech she is expected to describe universal credit as a “failure.”

The speech will say: “24% of children in my constituency live in poverty, in some areas this increases to 40%.

“For some of these children, whose parents are on universal credit, the hot, nutritionally balanced meal they have for lunch at school will be their main meal of the day.

“My local authority, Kirklees Council, has seen a 20% increase in pupils claiming free school meals over the last four years, which goes to show how hard the government’s austerity programme is hitting families.

“On average, these free school meals are worth £440 per child per year.

“For a family on universal credit, earning over £7,400 a year this would be a huge amount of money to find.”

Writing on his Kirklees Labour blog, Leader of Kirklees Council Clr David Sheard attacked the Prime Minister.

He said: “In a low-down vindictive swipe at the working poor Theresa’s Terrors tried to sneak in a cut to free school meals that would deprive 6,400 children in Kirklees alone of free school meals.

“The Commons’ crunch vote over the changes to the disastrous, universally hated universal credit is a response to the sneaky attempt by ‘Miserable Ministers’ to push through the changes last week on the nod. Thankfully, the underhand dastardly deed did not succeed.

“Let us hope that enough Tory MPs have just a little bit of human kindness left to enable them to scupper this scrupleless scheme.”

Northern Ireland is set to escape the change as its government has taken direct control of spending budgets and will leave the income threshold at £14,000.

The Children’s Society and the Resolution Foundation think tank has warned that because of the way that universal credit is calculated parents will face a ‘cliff edge’ where they lose out if they earn a penny over the £7,400 threshold in England.

Those with one child will need to earn an extra £1,100 a year to cover the cost of school meals.

In Kirklees all children in Reception class and Years 1 and 2 – four to seven-year-olds – get free lunch.

From Year 3 onwards, parents have to apply to retain them if they are on income support, universal credit or a number of other benefits.