UKPOL.CO.UK

Category: Education

  • Olivia Blake – 2020 Speech on Free School Meals

    Olivia Blake – 2020 Speech on Free School Meals

    Below is the text of the speech made by Olivia Blake, the Labour MP for Sheffield Hallam, in the House of Commons on 16 June 2020.

    I would like to take a moment to remember Jo Cox, a fellow Yorkshirewoman. She was such an inspiration and stood up against inequality and the loneliness that often accompanies it.

    I welcome the Government U-turn on free school meals over the summer. I pay tribute to Marcus Rashford for his leadership over the past few days. Perhaps Government Members could take some lessons from that.

    Since the onset of the covid-19 crisis, 1.5 million people have reported going a whole day without food. The use of food banks has soared. Mutual aid groups, food banks and campaigners in my constituency have struggled to provide the food that the people of Sheffield need. Their work and the work of others is heartening, but it is also a travesty that in the sixth richest country in the world it falls to volunteers and the charity sector to ensure that no one is going hungry.

    Over the past few years in Sheffield, we have seen a growth in activities for young people that now must involve the provision of food, whether they are holiday hunger projects or term-time clubs. Children are struggling to get the nutrition they need and rely on such projects, as well as free school meals. The demand is high and it is growing. Communities have identified the need, but it is clear that they do not have the resources to prevent hunger in their neighbourhoods. They cannot solve the structural issues of inequality, low pay, insufficient social security, and rising costs in housing, energy and the basics. Solving that requires action and intervention from this place.

    The pandemic has not created this crisis, but it has shone a light on the weaknesses that already exist. According the Trussell Trust’s “State of Hunger” report, 8% to 10% of households in recent years have experienced food insecurity, leading to 1.5 million units of emergency food parcels—

    Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)

    Order. [time for speech ran out]

  • Daniel Zeichner – 2020 Speech on Free School Meals

    Daniel Zeichner – 2020 Speech on Free School Meals

    Below is the text of the speech made by Daniel Zeichner, the Labour MP for Cambridge, in the House of Commons on 16 June 2020.

    For some, the free school meal voucher roll-out scheme has been nothing short of a disaster, and I know of 16 schools in my constituency that have reported problems with the system managed by the private company, Edenred. At a time when they had enough on their plate, head teachers were literally pulling their hair out. School after school told me that the system had crashed, with error messages appearing, some parents receiving vouchers but not others, and the impossibility of having a conversation with Edenred. At the height of the problems, staff at the North Cambridge academy were getting up at 6 o’clock in the morning to try to log on before the system was overwhelmed. At that point, they had been waiting two weeks for vouchers. If it takes the intervention of the local MP to make something happen, something has gone wrong.

    To add insult to injury, the vouchers do not work in many city shops. My local food hub told me of the despair of a mum of four children from Chesterton. She put credit on her phone to receive the vouchers, then asked a friend to print them, as she does not have a printer at home. She then walked to her local shop with her children in tow, shopped, queued, and finally reached the checkout, only to be told that the national vouchers were not redeemable in the Co-op. She was inconsolable. All the food had to be put back; she had no way of paying for it. Think how that must feel.

    Why not use non-Edenred schemes? After all, stores such as the Co-op have alternative food voucher schemes ready to go. Schools are nervous, especially after Government encouragement to use Edenred meant that schools dumped better functioning schemes for the Government’s preferred provider. There needs to be clarity about the financial support schools will receive if they choose not to use Edenred.

    The Government need to stop penalising well-managed schools. Some do have cash in the bank and in their reserves, but it is for a purpose—investing in buildings and books and computers. The Government guidance that schools with a budget surplus in the current financial year cannot reclaim the cost of providing vouchers needs to be rethought.

    Some will say that Cambridge is prosperous and, in many ways, it is, but even before the covid crisis, 1,741 children were already eligible for free school meals and that figure is going up. Since April, an additional 265 children have joined their ranks.

    We are fortunate to have the Food Poverty Alliance in Cambridge, backed with funding from the Labour city council. Volunteers cook and deliver meals, including to 70 families, at the kitchens at Cambridge Regional College. They cooked 2,000 meals last week. While we are talking football, although Cambridge United has sadly been forced off the pitch, their “Here for U’s” scheme was enough to get me cheering again and I understand that their bread and butter pudding has been a particular hit.​

    The Government’s U-turn is welcome, but until we get through this crisis, have a real living wage and job security, there will continue to be need. At one time, we had a Government who sought to Make Poverty History. Now we have a Government who all too often seem indifferent to growing hunger. At least they have been shamed into doing one thing right today.

  • Carolyn Harris – 2020 Speech on Free School Meals

    Carolyn Harris – 2020 Speech on Free School Meals

    Below is the text of the speech made by Carolyn Harris, the Labour MP for Swansea East, in the House of Commons on 16 June 2020.

    Holiday hunger is not a new phenomenon, and since the summer of 2017 in Swansea East, I, my team, the Swansea Ospreys, football and rugby clubs, local businesses, community groups, Big Food and Castell Howell, which are members of the wholesale federation, have provided food for local children—not just in the summer but during the Christmas holidays. I have lost count of the families we have supported, but it is easily in excess of 30,000.

    This summer, we thought our lunch club would be able to stand down, as the Welsh Labour Government recognised the issue and introduced a continuation of free school meals throughout the holidays. However, my grand, quiet summer has been interrupted by coronavirus and over the past 12 weeks we have been busy preparing and delivering more than 20,000 meals to vulnerable families across Swansea. Again, that was achieved with the support of Swansea Council, wonderful volunteers, Mecca bingo, and huge food donations from members of the wholesale federation—ironically, one of the few sectors not to have received any Government pandemic support.

    The Welsh Labour Government’s early decision to guarantee funding for free school meals throughout the school holidays is testament to their understanding of real-life issues and their ability to react to this real-life issue. We are hearing more and more harrowing stories of parents going without in order to feed their children—not because they are making thoughtless decisions on what to spend their money but because they do not have the money in the first place.

    Almost two months ago, the Welsh Labour Government made an announcement about continued funding for free school meals during the summer holidays. I welcome the fact that today the Prime Minister and the Government have finally, after immense pressure, U-turned on their original decision—again, following Wales’s lead—but I question why they did not make the obvious and compassionate decision in the first place, as that would have saved many families a lot of anxiety in recent weeks. Many families were concerned that during the school holidays they would be sending their children to bed with empty bellies. Welsh Labour led the way, and I am proud to be the deputy leader of Welsh Labour. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!] Thank you. I wonder: without ​huge pressure from Labour Members, Conservative Back Benchers and an international football star, and a public outcry, would the Prime Minister ever have reached the right decision and made a U-turn on this policy? That is food for thought, but I am afraid that the jury is out to lunch on the answer.

  • Kerry McCarthy – 2020 Speech on Free School Meals

    Kerry McCarthy – 2020 Speech on Free School Meals

    Below is the text of the speech made by Kerry McCarthy, the Labour MP for Bristol East, in the House of Commons on 16 June 2020.

    I congratulate Marcus Rashford on spearheading this campaign. He is an amazing role model, both on the pitch and off it. His speaking out on how his mother struggled to make ends meet and how he would turn up at his friends’ houses in the hope of being fed resonated across the country, and there are far too many other young kids like Marcus out there.

    Last year, I was one of the MPs who served on the children’s future food inquiry, and we heard devastating accounts from children, not just about raw and real hunger, but about living on leftovers, scraps or cheap food with little to no nutritional value. It should not take a famous footballer speaking out about his experiences as a child; the Government should have listened to those children back then in April last year and implemented the children’s right to food charter.

    Of course I welcome this U-turn, but we need to embed it, so that we do not have to have this argument every time the school holidays come around. This move alone will not be enough. For far too many children, their free school meal is the only decent meal they get, and the under-fives do not even get that.

    In Bristol, we will still be running our healthy holidays scheme this year, which is about far more than just providing a meal, but it looks as though we will have to do so without Government support. Feeding Bristol was fortunate enough to be a holiday hunger pilot in 2018, but last year we were not so lucky and we do not know why. We got nothing from the Government, but we raised £100,000 and we did it ourselves, albeit to a more limited degree than we would have liked. In 2020, we again missed out, apparently by just one point, but again we have no idea why. The Mayor of Bristol and I both wrote to the Government asking why some cities and towns were getting six-figure or even seven-figure sums but Bristol was getting nothing. We suggested ​spreading the money more evenly so that many more schemes could be pump-primed, but we have not had a response.

    We know that covid-19 has made many more families financially vulnerable and those who were already vulnerable even more so. I pay a particular tribute to FareShare, which has been fantastic throughout this crisis. Again, let us congratulate Marcus Rashford on raising £20 million for its national effort. In the past week alone, 80 tonnes of food came to Bristol via FareShare South West, but this is not, as the Government would have it, just about this summer and coping with the fallout from the pandemic. People have been attending food banks in record numbers since the economically illiterate, morally bankrupt policy of austerity was adopted a decade ago. The Government have consistently refused to acknowledge the sheer scale of the problem, to engage with those working on the frontline, or to address the underlying causes of food poverty, and it is time that they did.

  • Kate Osborne – 2020 Speech on Free School Meals

    Kate Osborne – 2020 Speech on Free School Meals

    Below is the text of the speech made by Kate Osborne, the Labour MP for Jarrow, in the House of Commons on 16 June 2020.

    Having been brought up in a single-parent household, I imagine I am one of a small number of MPs who received free school meals; I know exactly what it is likely to struggle to make ends meet.

    No child should have to go without food, and a child’s concentration, alertness and energy are greatly improved with a nutritious meal inside them. As we are one of the richest countries in the world, we must question why in 2020 families are struggling to put food on the table, heat their homes or clothe their children. No family should have to deal with this, and no parent should have to choose between feeding themselves and feeding their children. Sadly, that is often the choice parents face, and it is exactly what would have happened right across the country had this Government not made yet another U-turn today.

    It is a sad fact that one in three children in my constituency are growing up in poverty, and it is shameful that countless families have to endure this painful struggle, day in, day out. I see that struggle at first hand on a daily basis. My inbox regularly contains heartbreaking emails from families forced to rely on food banks to eat and struggling to pay their rent. Staggeringly, food banks have become normalised in society. I remember being outraged when they first started to pop up, as I could not quite believe people were needing to access charitable donations because they did not have enough money to buy food. Now, we all expect that there will be a donation box in the supermarket for food banks that we can donate to. We need to end the normalisation of food banks and to work towards a society where every family have enough money to live on.

    The Welsh Government have already announced that they will provide each eligible child with the equivalent of £19.50 a week over the summer, so it would have ​been deeply heartless for the Government not to fund the estimated £120 million, which will now ensure that children in this country, including 2,605 children in the Jarrow constituency, can eat for the summer holiday period. Not for the first time, the Prime Minister and his Government have found themselves on the wrong side of the argument, and I welcome the fact that they have made yet another U-turn.

    This issue is not about politics; it is about doing the right thing. Marcus Rashford, in his efforts to persuade the Government to see sense on this issue, should be applauded, and I am glad the Government have listened to him, to MPs on both sides and to the whole of the country, who have called for this. If the Government can find billions of pounds to support businesses during this pandemic, it is only right that £120 million has been found to ensure that families and children are provided with food this summer.

  • Rebecca Long-Bailey – 2020 Comments on Lost Teaching Time

    Rebecca Long-Bailey – 2020 Comments on Lost Teaching Time

    Below is the text of the comments made by Rebecca Long-Bailey, the Shadow Education Secretary, on 19 June 2020.

    The funding and the principle of a tutoring scheme is certainly a welcome start but it needs to be backed with a detailed national education plan to get children’s education and health back on track.

    We want to see all pupils return to school safely as soon as possible and repeat our call on the Government to urgently convene a taskforce across the sector to develop detailed plans in collaboration with trade unions, local authorities, parent’s organisations, scientific and health experts.

    The present plans lack detail and appear to be a tiny fraction of the support our pupils need at this critical time. The Government must take its responsibility to support children’s learning and their safe return to school seriously and demonstrate leadership in making this happen.

  • Nadia Whittome – 2020 Speech on Free School Meals

    Nadia Whittome – 2020 Speech on Free School Meals

    Below is the text of the speech made by Nadia Whittome, the Labour MP for Nottingham East, in the House of Commons on 16 June 2020.

    The idea that children should not go hungry is one that most people would consider an issue of basic morality. I am glad that the Government have now conceded that the free school meals scheme should be extended to cover the summer, but given that the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) was still arguing against this only a few hours ago, it is clear that this is not a moral change of heart, but a result of incredible pressure from campaigners such as Marcus Rashford and the Opposition.

    I would like to ask the Minister about one aspect of the policy. There are many children in this country who have committed no crime but the crime of being migrants —an accident of geography—and who therefore have no recourse to public funds. These pupils have been temporarily eligible for free school meals during the pandemic; will the Minister commit to ensuring that that continues, not just this summer, but as a permanent change in policy?

    It is telling that the Education Secretary should imply that children need access to nutritious, healthy meals only when they are at school. If it is wrong for children to go hungry, it is always wrong for children to go hungry, not just during a global pandemic and not only while they are at school.

    Despite the very welcome U-turn, this Government are by no means let off the hook for their shameful and damning record on child poverty and hunger. In the sixth richest country in the world, there is no excuse for letting a single child go to bed hungry. The fact that 1.3 million children are routinely receiving free school meals shows that something is deeply wrong. We are a wealthy country, but that wealth is not fairly distributed; the wealthiest 10% in our country have about 45% of the wealth. That inequality is only increasing; wages for the majority have been stagnant for the past decade, employment is increasingly insecure and precarious, and we have a standard-of-living slide, all while the rich get richer.

    Even though they may be fed this summer, we will still have approximately one third of children living in poverty. The Government typically respond to this by saying that the best route out of poverty is through work, but that is simply a meaningless platitude in light of the fact that most children who live in poverty have at least one parent in work.

    The Conservative party is the party of the food bank and zero-hour contracts. The Living Wage Foundation calculates the real living wage—not the Government’s made up living wage—based on what people need to get by. It is set at £9.30 per hour outside London and that means that anyone paid below that is on a poverty wage.

  • Apsana Begum – 2020 Speech on Free School Meals

    Apsana Begum – 2020 Speech on Free School Meals

    Below is the text of the speech made by Apsana Begum, the Labour MP for Poplar and Limehouse, in the House of Commons on 16 June 2020.

    I add my comments to those that have already been made in the House today regarding the reports of the Government’s U-turn, and also pay tribute to Marcus Rashford and his powerful testimony of his own experiences of free school meals growing up in a single-parent household. All of this comes after so much campaigning and arguing for something so simple: making sure that children who need food get it. All of this also comes after years of austerity, which has had a devastating impact on ethnic minorities, with around 45% of black, Asian and ethnic minority children now living in poverty.

    It is imperative that we join up the dots. The Public Health England report into the disproportionate impact of the covid-19 crisis on certain groups, which has finally been published, recognises that factors such as racism and social inequality may have contributed to increased risks of those in BAME communities catching and dying from the virus. In truth, it has been clear to anyone who has wanted to know that systemic economic inequalities mean that ethnic minority communities are at higher risk of being in poverty and so are particularly disadvantaged by the health crisis that we have endured.

    It has now been weeks since the part-censored review, reluctantly commissioned by the Government, finally officially identified major inequalities, including the alarming statistic that Bangladeshi people face around twice the risk of death. Many of us are very concerned that it has taken months for the Government formally to recognise what has been widely noted and commented on and that action still has not been taken, yet decisions and policies are still going ahead without a clear and transparent examination on how they will affect particular groups and without confirmation that the situation for BAME people will not be made worse.

    I was astonished to learn that a full regulatory impact assessment had not been prepared for yesterday’s statutory instrument on health regulations, the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations 2020. This is basic stuff. Let me be clear: this is not about what is technically correct according to bureaucratic rules; it is about what is morally just and correct. This is not about the game of power, but rather it is a question of justice.

    Will the Secretary of State clarify what assessment his Department has made of the impact of the original decision not to roll out the national voucher scheme over the summer on black, Asian and minority ethnic children and their families and those with other protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010? Will the Government commit to taking on the message that people across the world are crying out for those in ​power to understand, which is that, if black lives matter, every policy should be assessed before it is taken forward on how it will impact on different groups. This should be a meaningful and comprehensive process, and it should be made public.

  • Nick Smith – 2020 Speech on Free School Meals

    Nick Smith – 2020 Speech on Free School Meals

    Below is the text of the speech made by Nick Smith, the Labour MP for Blaenau Gwent, in the House of Commons on 16 June 2020.

    I wholeheartedly support the Labour motion and I am glad that the Government now recognise the strength of our case. It is important at this time that children who need help will be fed over the summer.

    Let me illustrate my point by referring to a crisis that my sisters and I experienced when we were young. We were children in a single-parent home in the south Wales valleys. We benefited from free school meals and clothing grants through our early years. At those times, those meals were a godsend. When I was 14, our mum had a terrible mental health episode. She moved away and left me and my two younger sisters to fend for ourselves for a few weeks, then my dad came back from being a seafarer to look after us. Mum did leave us with a £10 note, which was a big help, but she was in a terrible state. It was the start of ongoing very poor health for her, and she was to die at 42 years of age.

    I vividly remember the day after my mum left. I worked as a paper boy and there was a muesli promotion in one of the women’s magazines, so we had packets of muesli for breakfast for the next few days. Over those few weeks alone, we three kids pulled together, relatives stepped in and we managed until my dad came back. At school, we had free school meals. Those meals kept us going. Of course, it was a very unusual situation, but so ​is a global pandemic: people are having to feed their families while earning 80% of their normal wages; and people on sick pay are having to survive on £95 a week. This summer, too many families will find themselves in poverty and some will have to deal with a crisis. They may need that school-meal lifeline.

    My message is simple. The Government told us at the start of the pandemic that no one would be left behind. We should stand up for children who, through no fault of their own, need our support. I am glad that the Labour motion will now receive all-party support tonight. And finally, I say well done to Marcus Rashford.

  • Alison McGovern – 2020 Speech on Free School Meals

    Alison McGovern – 2020 Speech on Free School Meals

    Below is the text of the speech made by Alison McGovern, the Labour MP for Wirral South, in the House of Commons on 16 June 2020.

    I rise on the fourth anniversary of the death of my friend Jo Cox. We remember her every day.

    I want to thank England’s—[Interruption.] Go on then, Mike—Man United’s Marcus Rashford. We are all grateful to him. I thank the Secretary of State for answering his call, which will undoubtedly make a difference, although I suspect he is now having a word with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care for taking a pop at our footballers at the beginning of the covid crisis, which has now come home to roost.

    Holiday hunger is not a singular or new problem. It has its roots in insufficient family incomes, the cause of which is labour market fragility, which my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) spoke about. We know that the problems in the job market are about to get much worse. Added to that are rising prices in crucial areas such as childcare and the harm to the power of the welfare state in this country, which will be my focus in the minute I have remaining.

    The Conservatives have been in charge for 10 years. They have had enough time to show us their priorities, and here is what those priorities have been. The shutting of Sure Start, the end of the child trust fund and the cancellation of the health in pregnancy grant foreshadowed George Osborne’s £12 billion of welfare cuts. The Conservatives ripped the Child Poverty Act 2010 from the statute book, they introduced the two-child policy, which sent a message to children in families of three or four kids that the state does not care, and they introduced the benefits freeze, which sent the same message to families of all sizes. Child benefit has been cut by £350 per year for a family of two kids, and the local housing allowance has simply failed to keep up with rents. The Conservatives demonstrated their priorities by forcing people off tax credits on to universal credit even if that made them worse off. All of that was on top of low wage growth, which is compounded for many—particularly for single parents—by their inability to work ever more hours. For families in this country, there simply are not enough hours in the day.

    Those are the choices that have been made. Holiday hunger is simply the consequence of all that. It is the consequence of the Government picking holes in the blanket of the welfare state for 10 years. Each and every one of those policy choices has had consequences, and here we are. At the end of the day, this is about putting money in people’s pockets or not. My party has lost four elections in the past 10 years, and that is on us. Meanwhile, four Conservative Chancellors have put 600,000 children in this country into poverty, and that is on them.