Tory MPs vote down Rashford’s campaign for free school meals

ENGLAND FOOTBALLER Marcus Rashford’s campaign to provide free meals for deprived children in the school holidays has been defeated in the Commons.

Labour MPs had tabled a motion calling for the free school meals scheme to be extended beyond term time until Easter 2021 in light of the Manchester United star’s recent food poverty campaign. Yet the vote was defeated by 322 votes to 261 in the Commons last night, giving the Government a majority of 61 votes. Conservative MPs argued that the state had provided financial support for children living in poverty via local authorities during the coronavirus crisis, and that it was not the role of schools to provide meals outside of term time.

Mr Rashford released a poignant statement on Twitter following the vote, in which he pointed out that he had a “social education” which many MPs lacked.

He wrote: “Put aside all the noise, the digs, the party politics and let’s focus on the reality.

“A significant number of children are going to bed tonight not only hungry but feeling like they do not matter because of comments that have been made today. We must stop stigmatising, judging and pointing fingers. Our views are being clouded by political affiliation. This is not politics, this is humanity.”

The footballer was praised by Labour MPs including Mary Kelly Foy, who received free school meals herself as a child and later taught in secondary schools in deprived areas of London and Birmingham.

Naz Shah, Labour MP for Bradford West, pointed out that 5,500 children in her constituency are eligible for free school meals.

However two Yorkshire Conservative MPs backed their party in defeating the motion.

Miriam Cates, MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge, said a food voucher scheme that ran during the school holidays would only ever be a “sticking plaster” for tackling child poverty.

She told theCommons: “I think it’s important to recognise the difference between free school meals, what they are for, and supermarket vouchers.

“The initial supermarket voucher scheme was set up in

March and it wasn’t an attempt to solve child poverty, which is a matter for the welfare system and not our schools.”

Thirsk and Malton MP Kevin Hollinrake said he had had a “slight fall- out on the Twittersphere with Marcus Rashford a couple of weeks ago on this particular issue”.

He said: “They’d ( his constituents) be appalled by the prospect of the Government interfering in their daily lives to make sure their children don’t go hungry.

“I simply tweeted, where they can, it’s a parents’ job to feed their children.”

Other Conservatives pointed out that Rashford experienced childhood poverty when he was growing up under a Labour government. The footballer was born in 1997, the year Tony Blair came to power.

Education secretary Gavin Williamson told the Commons: “It is clear that the Government has taken very significant and unprecedented action to support children and families at risk of hardship during this period.

“Free school meals are and always have been about supporting children with a meal to help them when they’re at school or currently at home learning. But it is our support through Universal Credit and our comprehensive welfare system that supports families.”

We must stop stigmatising, judging and pointing fingers. Marcus Rashford, England footballer and campaigner.