Following the Government’s disgraceful decision not to extend free school meals for children over the half-term holidays, Labour councillors on Peterborough City Council have stepped up to help.

With the Government’s disgraceful decision not to provide free school meals over the holidays, Labour councillors on Peterborough City Council have stepped-up to help.

Having already provided tonnes of donations to local foodbanks, Labour councillors are organising food parcels for children eligible for free school meals to ensure they don’t have to go hungry during half-term.

With thousands of meals already packed and delivered, we’re proving once again that Labour will work for the residents of Peterborough.

Labour Group Leader, Shall Nawaz, said “In Peterborough 7,635 children are at risk of going hungry over the holidays as the government withdraws support for the provision of free school meals. Millions of families across the country face the prospect of losing their livelihoods because the government has lost control of how to combat the virus. This government’s ‘sink-or-swim’ plans for support could leave more than one million children at risk of going hungry over the school holidays.”

Peterborough City Council Shadow Cabinet Member for Education, Lucinda Robinson, added: “The free school meals programme is supposed to be there as a safety net so that whatever is happening in the lives of adults the children of our country get fed. I have witnessed in many schools over my 19 years in education the relief it brings struggling families to know their child is guaranteed a meal.

“I have seen pupils worry about there being enough food and that is an anxiety that no child should have to carry.

“At a time of crisis, a nation should be putting the needs of the most vulnerable first. For Conservative MPs to turn down the opportunity to feed our kids for just a few extra weeks of the year is miserly.”