A TORY minister stunned Politics Live guests this afternoon as he dismissed the campaign for England's free school meals scheme to be extended over the upcoming holidays, saying that children have been going hungry “for years”.
Business minister Paul Scully will not be supporting the push, led by footballer Marcus Rashford, to ensure pupils who qualify for free school meals in England have access to them over the winter break.
During a Politics Live discussion on the matter, Labour’s Tulip Siddiq asked the MP: “My question is simple – do you want to feed hungry children or not?”
READ MORE: Tory MP slammed for 'disgusting' reply to Marcus Rashford's school meals plan
Siddiq argued as other Tories have said they’ll support the move to extend England’s free school meals scheme over the upcoming holidays, it’s clear the proposal is a “matter of conscience”.
She went on: “Are you going to put money forward to feed hungry children in one of the toughest winters of our generation or not – and if you’re not going to, you have to go back to your constituencies and face the music.”
The business minister replied: “We’ve had a situation where children are, have been going hungry under a Labour government for years.
“What we’ve done, we’ve put a Universal Credit system in place which allows flexibility for people to go back to work and then topping up their incomes so they don’t have the cliff edge of the old benefits system that we saw under the previous Labour government.
“So we have been starting to tackle those issues of the people that are at that point in the pay scale and making sure that their children can get fed.”
The presenter chipped in: “Paul did you say that children have gone hungry for years? Is that acceptable?”
He said it wasn’t, which is why Tories are looking at “how we can help parents over the long term rather than the kind of situation that Tulip is sorting out”.
The Tories have now been in power for 10 years – in that time food banks have recorded significant increases in the number of people using their services.
Since 2010 the number of uses of Trussell Trust food banks has increased from 41,000 to 1.2 million, but it is not clear what the total number of people using food banks across the UK is.
The Social Metrics Commission found in 2017/18 that an estimated 34% of children are in poverty in the UK.
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