MP’s have voted against a Labour plan to spend £126 million and to utilise £1.4 million of this money towards children, creating a £15 a week food voucher to be used during school holidays until Easter. In favour of the motion voted 261 MP’S including 5 conservative MP’s, however 332 conservative MP’S including the Prime Minister himself voted against it. Labour MP Kate Green stated that the turnout of the vote has ‘badly let down more than one million children and their families. No child should go hungry over the holidays, but the government is blocking the action needed to prevent this.’ After the outcome of the vote Footballer Marcus Rashford, a key player in establishing this plan, commented that people needed to put ‘aside politics and come to the realisation that there are a significant number of children going to bed tonight hungry but feeling like they do not matter.’ Since then, councils and business owners up and down the country have stepped forward to provide free meals for children this half term, for example McDonalds have since offered 1,000,000 free meals for families over half term and more local restaurants in areas such as Ilford, Chelmsford and Ealing have showed their support for the #endchildpoverty initiative by offering free food essentials to households in need of aid.
During the most recent Prime Ministers Questions segment Boris Johnson , despite backlash from the opposition bench and many deeply saddened low income families across the country has stated that ; ‘ we support kids of low incomes in school and we will continue to do so, we continue to use the benefit system and all the systems of income support to support young people and children throughout the holidays as well.’ Stemming from this it has been recently discovered that Vicky Ford an MP not long ago was anointed the position of Children’s minister, Vicky had also voted against the free school meals extension initiative for low income households further angering many. It could now be argued, is our democracy effectively representing us and catering to our needs? Taiwo Owatemi , Labour MP for Coventry argues exactly that. In the House of Commons last week Owatemi is fuelled by her passion for the social injustice of the outcome of the vote. She says that she is saddened that MP’s have conversed and voted on the topic of free school meals as if it were a ‘luxury’. She questions the integrity of the government asking ‘ what kind of nation do we want to be where elected members of this House who are essentially in Parliament to represent the constituency and ensure that they get the best opportunities in life- when members from the opposite bench will be so callous to treat the ability of hardworking families from deprived areas to feed their children as such a luxury ’ she concludes once again that food is not to be seen as a bonus but a ‘basic human right’ Some Conservative MPs have since expressed concerns that extending this to school holidays would mean families become dependent in the long term on government-funded meals. Rishi Sunak, chancellor of the Exchequer, says that the government are "absolutely committed" to making sure vulnerable children do not go hungry yet he says the narrative that the government voted against free school meals is not fair, because they provide for the children during the term time. Sunak also told BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat that the government have ‘invested billions of pounds in universal credit and housing allowances’ but that they have to to be ‘able to trust local councils to make decisions for their people.’
