Northampton Labour joins outcry over plan to end coronavirus food vouchers for poor children in July

Northampton Labour has backed nationwide calls for the Government to extend the food vouchers for children eligible for free school meals to the summer holidays.

Ministers have been threatened with legal action after confirming the scheme set up to feed pupils when schools were shut at the beginning of the coronavirus crisis would end in July.

Labour councillor for Delapre and Briar Hill at Northampton Borough Council, Emma Roberts, believes the initiative is needed now more than ever and scrapping it would be tragic.

"Our schools are under immense pressure to re-open safely, teach, protect and now feed as well.

"The cancellation of the voucher scheme will cause those families, who struggled before Covid-19, such distress.

"The added pressures of the Covid-19 pandemic means the numbers requiring support will only grow. The potential for people to slip through the gaps is huge."

The Government introduced a national voucher scheme for children eligible for free school meals in March when schools closed due to the coronavirus lockdown.

The scheme provides poorer families with a £15 per child voucher per week that can be spent at supermarkets to cover the cost of lunch.

But the Department for Education announced last week the initiative would end at the end of the school year, with holiday activities and food for 50,000 children from low-income families available.

Food charity Sustain says this would account for only four per cent of the children eligible for free school meals and urged the Government to reconsider.

Ministers extended it over the Easter and half-term holidays after public pressure and campaigners hope a similar U-turn will be made for the summer break, with legal action threatened.

Cllr Roberts said every primary school in her ward has received support from the voluntary sector to ensure all pupils are fed during the lockdown.

“The pressure on families, schools and the voluntary sector will be huge. The impact on children will be devastating," she added.

In June last year, Cllr Roberts proposed a motion for the council to help volunteers establish holiday clubs and food programs during school holidays for children experiencing poverty in Northampton.

The motion was voted down by three votes, dismissed by some as a concept that came as a total surprise to them as this was not a problem they had experienced in their area at all.

Cllr Roberts said: “I was so disappointed when the motion did not go through. I couldn’t understand anyone who dismissed the need.

"I knew then what huge benefits are derived from these projects and how further forward we might be now if they had been established."

Since then, Cllr Roberts has been part of a scrutiny panel to consider food poverty in Northampton but its meetings have been paused during the pandemic.

The Labour member called on her fellow councillors and MPs to join her opposition to the food voucher scheme being ended.

"We needed this support in our areas before Covid-19. We need it more than ever now," she said.

"I call on our MPs to back the emergency income support scheme as proposed by many charities in Northampton.

"We need to ensure we have a fully functioning and collaborative approach to preventing holiday hunger.”