The vote on the free school meals on Wednesday was a motion from an opposition day debate. Opposition day debates are useful for the opposition to press the government and hold them to account on important issues, but the votes do not become law even if they pass.
Firstly,
I am a mum. Nothing is more important to me than the health and well-being of
our children.
I
voted against the motion because the government already has significant
measures in place to support vulnerable families. It might be helpful if I
explain this further.
The
best way of ensuring that families are supported financially is by ensuring
that we have a welfare system that works for everyone in this country. It
is not right for schools or the education system to become part of the welfare
state in the way that this motion demanded. The welfare state is there to
protect families, the education system is there to educate our children.
What
we need to be doing, therefore, is ensuring that parents have enough support
from the welfare state in order to be able to support their children throughout
the school holidays, when they are at home and away from education.
£9.3
billion of additional welfare payments have been given during the pandemic on
top of £53 billion in job support packages (Furlough, SEISS to name a couple).
Eligible
families have also been supported throughout lockdown through the receipt of
meal vouchers worth £380 million while schools were partially closed, alongside
the Holiday Activities and Food Fund.
Over
the last few months the government has targeted welfare support at those on low
incomes, which includes increasing universal credit and working tax credit by
up to £1,040 for this financial year. This will benefit more than four million
households. Those who are eligible for free school meals include those who are
on Universal Credit. The government have also provided an additional £63
million in welfare assistance funding for local authorities to support families
with urgent needs, including over the October half-term.
Of
course, sadly, some parents have found themselves out of work and the vast
majority of these will want to get back into work, which is why the government
is doubling the number of frontline work coaches, and putting in place a new
job support scheme to protect jobs and businesses that are facing lower demand
over the winter as a result of the pandemic.
It is
also worth noting that the government raised the personal tax allowance to
£12,500 to ensure that those on the lowest incomes benefit, and at the same
time we have raised the adult national living wage to £8.72, up from the adult
national minimum wage of £5.80 at the start of 2010.
I want
to be absolutely clear that my vote yesterday, as a mum and a constituency MP
representing thousands of families, was not a vote to 'starve our children', as
some have accused me of. If that was the case, then I would absolutely
not have voted in the way that I did. But it simply was not the case.
Therefore, I voted the way I did for the reasons stated above.
Free
school meals have never been provided to families during school holidays,
indeed it was this Conservative Government that set that precedent earlier this
year, during the summer holidays, because of the exceptional circumstances the
whole country was facing. No Labour Government has ever provided this for our
children, nor did Labour ever support families the way this government is.
Help
and support is always available to those who need it and I am more than happy
to help those in need.
If you
do know any constituents struggling at the moment, then please do put them in
contact. In particular, if you know of families who will be unable to provide
meals for their children throughout the school holidays, please encourage them
to get in touch. My team and I very much stand ready to help them.
So you think that Children should not have the welfare of food in an educational system, during a pandemic?
ReplyDeleteYour statement of wanting to support families financially is absurd, surely the best way of supporting a family is by ensuring their basic needs are met. Money is not a basic need, food is a basic need, and a human right.
You say that nothing is more important than the health and wellbeing of children, then talk about financial figures and work ethics.
It seems like you care more about money than about human wellbeing.
It's when Conservatives start talking about wanting a better way to help the poorest and most vulnerable that I start throwing things around. These better ways of helping the poor only occur to them when an obvious way of helping the poor would cost money.
DeleteThe lousiness of the language and the derivative nature of the thinking is what characterises a Conservative these days. All this talk of 'targeting'. That's just a lousy way of restricting welfare assistance to people who are slightly more desperate than the averagely poor people. And all this rubbish about how free school meals in the holidays are impossible because this is not the way things have been done in the past. Things are different now, aren't they? A few weeks ago we were getting subsidised meals from the Chancellor. In a few weeks' time children will be starving over the Christmas holidays, and we will be told it is down to parents who've lost their jobs to feed them.
ReplyDeleteIf the welfare state was doing its job, Cherilyn, food banks wouldn't be necessary. Free school meals wouldn't be necessary. Next year, after we leave the single market and customs union, an awful lot of people who voted for you will be discovering the world of universal credit. Perhaps when Tories start going hungry we shall see a change of policy,
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DeleteYou are utterly out of touch if you believe the government has “significant measures in place to support vulnerable families” !
ReplyDeleteIn just one year (even before the additional hardship due to the impact of Covid) a record 1.9 food bank parcels we’re given by the Trussell Trust network. There are also other wonderful food banks filling the gap too.
Last year the UN even had to condemn the UK regarding so many people suffering in poverty! Then on top of such hardship caused by austerity our most vulnerable face additional hardships due to Covid! Yes the government has made some recent changes but what you class as significant is shown to be pitiful!
The government hands out millions in lucrative deals including deals to unreputable companies who are not delivering what they should or ones connected to conservative MPs! Such as Randox!!!! But you can’t provide the money to feed hungry children, all the while MPs have subsided meals yourselves, a disgrace!
The recent changes implemented by the government are a drop in the ocean and are certainly not “significant to support the most vulnerable” how you think this justifies voting to let children go hungry over the holiday I can’t even try to work out.
Also rather shameful to use the fact you are a mum to justify letting vulnerable children go hungry, you have demonstrated a huge lack of empathy and lack of understanding of vulnerable community members. I don’t believe any of the constituents here in Cornwall would have voted like you and your colleagues did, and you are not representing us. Stop towing the party line and do your job, represent and stand up for those in your community, particularly the most vulnerable.
You are utterly out of touch if you believe the government has “significant measures in place to support vulnerable families” !
ReplyDeleteIn just one year (even before the additional hardship due to the impact of Covid) a record 1.9 food bank parcels we’re given by the Trussell Trust network. There are also other wonderful food banks filling the gap too.
Last year the UN even had to condemn the UK regarding so many people suffering in poverty! Then on top of such hardship caused by austerity our most vulnerable face additional hardships due to Covid! Yes the government has made some recent changes but what you class as significant is shown to be pitiful!
The government hands out millions in lucrative deals including deals to unreputable companies who are not delivering what they should or ones connected to conservative MPs! Such as Randox!!!! But you can’t provide the money to feed hungry children, all the while MPs have subsided meals yourselves, a disgrace!
The recent changes implemented by the government are a drop in the ocean and are certainly not “significant to support the most vulnerable” how you think this justifies voting to let children go hungry over the holiday I can’t even try to work out.
Also rather shameful to use the fact you are a mum to justify letting vulnerable children go hungry, you have demonstrated a huge lack of empathy and lack of understanding of vulnerable community members. I don’t believe any of the constituents here in Cornwall would have voted like you and your colleagues did, and you are not representing us. Stop towing the party line and do your job, represent and stand up for those in your community, particularly the most vulnerable.
As a teacher, can you imagine trying to teach hungry children? Can you concentrate when you're hungry? The Conservatives have completely misjudged this and are too stubborn to back down. They've taken away Working Tax Credits and Child Tax Credits. They've ruined people's lives with the introduction of Universal Credit, a flawed system. People have taken their own lives due to the hardships they have had to endure under this government. I urge you to think again. It's not too late to do the right thing. Turning your back on this problem will cost you your seat as you are not currently representing the views of your constituents.
ReplyDeleteThis is such an important issue, it’s a shame to see you resorting to politics at the end of your statement. This is an issue that should reach across both sides of the house and have people working together to resolve. Your statement looks to have been a copy and paste of a number of defences used by the government, talking about how much you have already done doesn’t quite make up for the fact you could do more. Don’t obfuscate the issue with quoted £ values of support already given. If you felt you had done enough why do more at all?
ReplyDeleteIt’s clear this is an exceptional circumstance calling for exceptional solutions. Giving parents more money to support their children without giving them the wrap around support is throwing good money after bad. That money will get lost on all sorts of other cost challenges. This is a solution that needs to be supported by dealing with so many other leading factors, unemployment, education, rising house prices, addiction, social care, crime; all these things and many more add up to a society that is really having a tough time making ends meet. So many other factors need addressing if this is your solution. I liken the solution you voted down of free school meals to ‘quantative easing’, a quick injection to help support a fledgling solution that might not be impactful soon enough. I beg you to reconsider your support, I’m not asking you to stop doing what you are already planning, but to do more. I not asking you to not fund more support through universal credits, but to add to it.
It’s also a bit of nonsense to say that ‘it’s not right for schools or the education system to become part of the welfare state in the way that this motion demanded. The welfare state is there to protect families, the education system is there to educate our children.’ Nobody is talking about it becoming part of the welfare state, whoever convinced you of that did a job on you. School already provide breakfast clubs; ensuring children are fed and ready to learn, they partner with local communities to ensure that children are getting the best chance of an education as possible. They run preschool and after school clubs, they have parents’ evenings, they already provide free school meals by law. Schools are part of our community and are providing for our children’s future and the future of the country. This simple solution is a way for our communities to support our children and our future. It very disappointing to read your statement. Please, as a mother, reconsider you position on this and ask yourself if you are doing the very best you can for your constituents’ children or for your party.
SeeYour blog is disingenuous in the extreme, cherry picking statistics which hide the callousness of your government rather than enlighten. Living in a county with a higher than average proportion of families living in poverty and, as you so often say "a mum", one would expect some empathy.
ReplyDeleteThe Children's Commissioner has demonstrated that child poverty has increased by 600,00 since the Tories came to power; that the number is set to increase to 5.2 million by 2022. Universal Credit has not prevented more families from falling into poverty, and Cornwall is loosing employment prospects as the economic downturn continues.
Two thousand pediatricians has written to the Prime Minister to register their disdain for your penny-pinching approaches to the people of this county. It is truly a disgrace that one of the richest economies in the world cannot care for the most vulnerable members of our community.
Our local cafe in Castle Beach has risen to the challenge, providing lunches without question to children - shaming the six MP's of Cornwall who unanimously voted the motion down.
As the Government now appears to have performed a u-turn on this issue, will you be updating your blog to explain why you now think feeding hungry children is a wonderful idea, or lobbying the ministers responsible to stick to their original plan of starving them?
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ReplyDelete