CHILDREN'S commissioner Anne Longfield has said a tweet by Conservative MP Ben Bradley, which appeared to agree with a comment suggesting some meal vouchers went direct to “a crack den and a brothel” was “deeply disrespectful”.
Ben Bradley, elected to become the first Tory MP for Mansfield in 2017, replied to a tweet in which another user described the free school meals programme as “£20 cash direct to a crack den and a brothel”.
In a post on Twitter which has since been removed, he wrote: “That’s what FSM vouchers in the summer effectively did…”
READ MORE: Ben Bradley: Did Tory MP say free meals only paid 'crack dens and brothels'?
“We need to make sure that free school meals, it isn’t a long-term solution, are available not only at Christmas but up until April,” Longfield told Sky News’ Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme.
“[For Bradley] to make that kind of comment is deeply disrespectful and if there are children living in dangerous situations in his constituency, he should be calling the local authority and social services to make sure those children get help rather than going onto Twitter to talk about it.”
Longfield said the comment was “another distraction” from the problem of child poverty and added that more support was needed for children’s learning and mental health services.
“(Youth mental health) is getting worse because of the pandemic,” she said.
“I want to see a really robust response from government in their spending review. I want to see a mental health councillor in every school.
“It should be part and parcel of life for kids so they can get the help when they need it.”
Bradley insisted the tweet was “totally taken out of context”.
He told BBC Breakfast: “It [the tweet] has been totally taken out of context. I was merely making the point that there are kids who live in really chaotic situations, really difficult lives, where actually giving them an unrestricted voucher to spend on whatever isn’t helpful.
“The point I’m making is we need to wrap our arms as a society around those families. That’s why Government has given that money to local government because they are best placed working with social services, working with schools, to be able to find those families, to target them, to help them in a more holistic way than meal vouchers.”
READ MORE: Ben Bradley claims controversial free school meals tweet 'taken out of context'
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