Washington and Sunderland West MP Sharon Hodgson today used a Parliamentary debate to launch a scathing attack on coalition plans to cutback spending on Free School Meals. The campaigning MP has led a Parliamentary crusade to raise awareness of the benefits of universal free school meals since a visit to Sweden in 2006 convinced her of their merits. Under cutbacks announced by the Conservative Education Secretary Michael Gove earlier this month it has been confirmed that the rollout of regional pilots of universal free school meals is now to be scrapped as well as the planned extension to the number of children eligible for free school meals which would have seen the bar raised to meet the official poverty level of £16,190 per household.

The debate came just a day after Labour leadership candidate Ed Balls launched the next stage of his campaign to ‘Save our Free School Meals’ by teaming up with the GMB trade union in Newham to highlight the increase in uptake of Free School Meals from 51% to 75% since the scheme to give every primary school pupil a free lunch began in September.

Mrs Hodgson said:

“The coalition claim to want to encourage employment but the simple fact is that their free school meals policy will mean any out of work parent will lose £300 per child a year in support if they go back to work, because they lose their children’s entitlement to a free school meal. What Labour had decided was that eligibility had to be based on income, not on receiving benefits and now the Tories have back-tracked on that – so much for wanting to get people back to work.

Thatcher was always known as the milk snatcher but now the Tories and the Liberals have gone one step further and become meal snatchers. This is a double blow for our children’s health, not only will it lead to an ongoing absurdity where the majority of children officially living in poverty are not receiving a free school meal. It will also mean that the many benefits of universal free school meals will be lost to a generation which is facing a growing problem with obesity. These changes are not about prudence or penny pinching, they are about an ideological commitment to a smaller state and today’s debate just goes to show that neither the Tories or the Liberals care who loses out in the process of achieving that.

It is disingenuous of Tim Loughton (Shadow Minister for Children) to suggest that we had not funded the pilots. It has been made quite clear where the money to pay for them was going to come from. I’m going to keep working hard with Roberta and other MPs to show up the sleight of hand being performed here so that we can have a debate on this issue based on the facts we already have about the benefits universal free school meals can bring. “

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Sharon Hodgson MP
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