Free School Meals: Summer Holidays

Paul Bristow Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

I assure my hon. Friend that I will continue to focus on doing the right thing. That will be the key aim of all this.

My hon. Friend makes a really important point about the vulnerable children right across society. I would like to take the opportunity to thank the many teachers and teaching assistants, the social workers who have worked so closely with schools, and the police who have identified some of the children who are most vulnerable—those who needed someone to take the opportunity to reach out to them and make sure that they came into school and had a safe place to come. They have done a magnificent job, and I think everyone in the House is deeply grateful for the triumphant and heroic efforts that they have all made.

[Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the support that teachers and schools have offered to vulnerable people goes much further than just a free school meal? Some of the most vulnerable children in schools in Peterborough have received regular phone calls from their teachers making sure that they are okay and they are looked after during this difficult time.

[Gavin Williamson]

This is where we need to drive things further, to build up layer upon layer of support for children who are not in school to make sure that they are constantly learning, that they do not fall behind and that they constantly move forward in their education and benefit from the world-class education we have in this country.

Many schools have done an amazing job of keeping free school meals going through either food collections or deliveries. Where schools were unable to do that, we set up the national free school meals voucher. That scheme was established at pace, and over £150 million-worth of vouchers have been redeemed through it.

Alongside the voucher scheme, we continue to provide schools with all their expected funding, including funding to cover free school meals, and most schools right across the country have continued provision in school for those children who are most vulnerable. On top of that, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has provided an additional £63 million for local authorities to help those who are struggling financially to pay not just for food but for other necessities at this incredibly difficult time.

Although many children are now returning to school thanks to the outstanding efforts of hard-working teachers and all those who work in schools, we are not yet out of this crisis. In schools, homes, workplaces and, above all, the NHS, people up and down the country are still making extraordinary sacrifices to overcome this deadly disease.

Free school meals have always been a term-time provision, and that is what they should be, but while we are in extraordinary times, we must not be bound by the constraints of what normally happens. A Government should always listen to the people who need them most. I would like to extend my particular thanks to Marcus Rashford for using his public position to amplify the voices of those who must and should be heard. By speaking out for the less fortunate and raising the phenomenal total of over £20 million in just a few days, he represents the best of Britain and is a role model for all the children who look up to him for inspiration.

We should never be ashamed to listen. I am pleased to announce that we will provide additional funding for a covid summer food fund, to enable children who are eligible for free school meals to claim a six-week voucher. As we prepare for schools to reopen fully in September, we will ensure that no child goes hungry. As we move forward, we will continue to do all we can to support disadvantaged children through not just free school meals but a long-term and sustained programme of catch-up activities, to close the educational gap, which has widened during this period, and ensure that every child in this country can achieve their full potential. We are finalising those plans, and I will shortly be in a position to outline them to the House. We will not be moving our amendment, and I commend this motion to the House.

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[Naz Shah (Bradford West) (Lab)]

On days like this, I despair of this Government and their complete lack of understanding, care and emotion towards the very real issues in our country. [Interruption.] It is not a laughing matter for children to be raised in poverty and not have food. It is not something to laugh at. I am happy to explain what it is like to the Government Members who think it is funny.

What it is like to live in poverty is to be palmed off, like I was as a child, to social services, to go away for a week at a time. I went to Scarborough. The only memories I have of that time are that I went birdwatching and it was awfully cold staying in a dormitory. Only this afternoon, I rang my sister to ask, “Do you remember when we used to go to Scarborough because Mum used to send us there for summer holidays?” That is what poverty is—memories that you do not want to recall as an adult, even in my mid-40s. These are not memories that my constituents’ children should have to recall in generations to come.

I despair because today it has taken the experiences of a 22-year-old black man using his social media to get this Government to do the right thing. Our Prime Minister keeps saying, “I am going to take back control.” Who actually took control of this debate today? It was not us in this House. We should have been leading on this issue and doing the right thing before it needed a massive campaign by Marcus Rashford. I absolutely appreciate and thank him for taking that leadership, and others for supporting him, and our those on our Front Bench, who lobbied early this week and talked about the issue previously, but the Government should not have had to be dragged here kicking and screaming.

The Government should not need an international debate—just like today on child poverty—on racism for them to realise that they have failed to provide race equality in the UK, even according to their own recommendations. The Government should not need the entire country to scream in their face to act on a lockdown for us to be protected from covid-19. When it comes to saving millions, they are happy to do so for Tory donors. The figure quoted in the press as the saving made by approving a Tory donor’s Westferry development is £30 million to £40 million, yet we cannot find £120 million for our children. [Interruption.] I will make some progress. When it comes to defending the indefensible with a No. 10 adviser, this Government seem to find their mojo. They do not heed the campaigns that the country is screaming for.

[Paul Bristow]

rose—

[Naz Shah]

I will not be giving way; I will make some progress.

Bradford West has one of the highest rates of child poverty. It is in the top 10 according to the charity End Child Poverty. Its findings show that 50.9% of children in my constituency live in poverty after housing costs. The Government’s own statistics show that almost 40,000 children across the Bradford district are living in poverty. Those children are not mere statistics. Each one of them is a Marcus Rashford, except the cycle of deprivation will mean they may never get out of poverty.

Marcus Rashford epitomises what happens in spite of, not because of, poverty. One of the reasons he felt the campaign was needed was that poverty was his experience. One of the reasons my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (James Murray) tweets about it and talks about it is that he also experienced life as a child of a single parent on free school meals, just like I did and just like my siblings did. Will the new yardstick in this place to get the Government to do the right thing be a campaign by a footballer or by somebody who has a social media following? Is that what the yardstick is going to be? That would be a crying shame.

Yes, the Government can say that they are running pilot schemes in constituencies such as mine—

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[Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)]

From one Wythenshawe-born lad to another, thank you Marcus Rashford. As a United fan, it has been a pleasure to see so many people united from across the football family and well beyond, taking a powerful stand for children. Marcus stated passionately that this was about “humanity”, not politics—a humanity shaped by his direct experience of growing up in Wythenshawe, Manchester in child poverty. Actually, I partially disagree with Marcus on that point. Together with campaigners in Parliament and beyond, he has led change. He is a change maker, striking his political goal of feeding 1.3 million children this summer—Marcus Rashford one, Prime Minister Johnson nil.

[Paul Bristow]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mike Amesbury]

No.

Before the Prime Minister’s U-turn, Minister after Minister told us, “We don’t normally fund free school meals outside term time.” Well, we do not normally furlough 9 million workers. We do not normally ask people to isolate, distance and bubble. We do not normally close down schools in the middle of the school year. Nothing has been normal since March. This pandemic has required an extraordinary response from the party of small government and an extraordinary response from society.

This enforced U-turn—we remember the Order Paper, just hours ago—is a victory for children and a victory for common sense. But we cannot be in denial about the economic fallout from covid-19. This is only just the beginning, and it comes on top of 10 years of austerity. We cannot be in denial about the impact that this will have on the poorest in our society: the economic effect of the virus is pushing more families into poverty, and more children will go hungry, from Palacefields to Leftwich in my constituency.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) pointed out, the IPPR estimates that 200,000 more children will now fall below the poverty line and are at risk of hunger. This is not the time for a small state—it is the time for Government to get on their side, surely. In the long term, we need to look at the extraordinary number of children who are living in poverty in this country. We need to work hard to stop child poverty at its roots, rather than treating its worst symptoms or coming out with ideological claptrap and stereotypes. Hunger does not understand term dates. It does not understand ideological nonsense. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we all worked together, grew up a little and ended child and food poverty once and for all?

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[Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I add my voice to those thanking Marcus Rashford for his inspiring and tireless work against child hunger. I also pay tribute to 15-year-old Dev Sharma, the Member of Youth Parliament for Leicestershire and an ambassador for the Food Foundation, for championing the right to food for all children.

I could not agree more that in 2020, in the sixth richest country in the world, it is appalling that we are even having this debate about how to feed our children. Marcus is brilliant, but it should not be left to pioneering premier league footballers to paper over the cracks created by a decade of cruel austerity. The Government should be ashamed of their record: 200,000 children going hungry; 45% of African, Asian and minority ethnic children living in poverty; and 1 million more children projected to be in poverty by 2022.

[Paul Bristow]

The hon. Lady talked about the large number of people from ethnic minority backgrounds—in her constituency, perhaps—living in poverty. Will she congratulate the charities in Peterborough that are working with the Conservative city council there to ensure that people from ethnic minority backgrounds are helped during this difficult time?

[Claudia Webbe]

Indeed, I praise all the voluntary organisations, particularly in my own constituency, that have stepped up to provide food banks at a time when poverty has been stark, and the many faith organisations that have stepped in to help during these times.

I know from my own experience what it is like to be a child on free school meals despite both parents working, and what that means for survival, progress and opportunity. In communities like mine, this Government have normalised hunger, poverty and hopelessness. Some 42% of children in Leicester East live in poverty. Years of austerity combined with insecure employment means that an estimated 44,000 children in Leicestershire are living below the poverty line, even though the vast majority—31,000—have at least one parent who has a job. The fact that a job no longer provides a route out of poverty, or even guarantees that our children will be fed, represents an unforgivable breakdown of our social contract.

Before covid-19, 51% of children in one area of my constituency were in child poverty—and that was before this unprecedented crisis. Nearly 6,000 households in Leicester East are in fuel poverty, meaning that 14% of schoolchildren in my constituency are living in a situation where parents are forced to make the impossible choice between keeping their family warm or going hungry.

Beyond school meals, this Government have completely failed young people in Leicester in terms of education.