Tory MP Jenkyns reveals why she voted against free holiday meals

YORKSHIRE TORY MP Andrea Jenkyns has revealed why she voted against free school meals for children over the school holidays.

A motion put forward by the Labour Party which called for free school meals to be extended over school holidays until Easter 2021 was defeated by 261 votes to 322 – majority 61 – in the Commons last Wednesday.

Morley and Outwood MP Andrea Jenkyns was one of several Yorkshire MPs to vote against the motion.

She appeared on the BBC’s regional politics programme, Politics North and presenter Tim Iredale

held up the Yorkshire Evening Post’s front page from Friday, which asked the question: “Just how you could starve our city’s children?”

Ms Jenkyns responded: “Let’s put this into context first. This was an Opposition Day debate – the Labour opposition never support anything that we put forward, including budgets, which actually put more money into the welfare system.

And Conservatives, or whoever’s in government, never support Opposition Day – non- binding – motions, it’s a non- binding motion, bytheway.” Mr Iredale asked:

“The parliamentary language is fair enough – this is about children going hungry in the school holidays. We had a government which subsidised Michelin star restaurants– Eat Out to Help Out– why won’t you subsidise children’s meals?”

Ms Jenkyns replied: “We are subsidising – £ 9.3bn has been put into the welfare system and £ 63m has been given to local councils to help families in financial difficulty. There’s been £ 16m into food charities, even the CEO of Shelter has praised our support welfare package during Covid times – so that’s a lot of rubbish really.”