Opinion: ‘Importance of feeding our children’

Councillor Shaz Nawaz, Labour Group leader on Peterborough City Council writes:
Labour councillors  have taken donations from a number of supermarkets in the city and are pictured making a food donation to Paston Ridings Primary School (Monday October 26).Labour councillors  have taken donations from a number of supermarkets in the city and are pictured making a food donation to Paston Ridings Primary School (Monday October 26).
Labour councillors have taken donations from a number of supermarkets in the city and are pictured making a food donation to Paston Ridings Primary School (Monday October 26).

The Labour Group and I are working with the community to ensure our children are fed over the half-term holidays.

We delivered thousands of meals on October 26; this included two schools, Paston Ridings and Heritage. I have been heartened to see that restaurants in our city and Peterborough United have joined in this effort.

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It’s also gratifying that McDonalds is making a contribution. As the businesswoman Deborah Meaden stated on Twitter, “I take heart that when the Government failed our children... a Nation stepped in.”

The Government has failed us. And to be blunt, so has our local MP, who voted against the measure to extend free school meals to our children over the holidays. It should be a no-brainer: starving children is a bad idea. The country is already experiencing economic distress: the idea that heaping more on top of struggling families is as bizarre as it is heartless.

We have seen some of the thinking behind the government’s bewildering lack of concern: Ben Bradley, the Conservative MP for Mansfield, suggested that free school meal vouchers could be used to purchase illegal drugs. The Conservative MP for Wokingham suggested that food parcels were traded for drugs in his constituency too; this is a ludicrous idea, borne out of the fever dreams of tabloid writers. The Conservative MP for Shipley suggested that supporting Free School Meal vouchers was somehow “virtue signalling” rather than what it is, i.e., feeding children who need it.

Let’s spell this out even more clearly: the vast majority of children who receive free school meals come from low-income families that suffer from food poverty. That is the beginning, the middle and the end of it. The idea that this vast majority should be deprived because of anecdotal supposition of food as an alternative medium of exchange is brainless as well as heartless.

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As Ms. Meaden pointed out, the Nation has stepped in when the Government failed. We should be heartened by this, but we should not forget the Government failed.

Marcus Rashford has led on this issue, but where is the Prime Minister? Where is the Health Secretary? Where is the Communities Secretary? They have tried to hide behind these private initiatives, saying they are in support of them, as if token words can disguise their responsibility.

I have heard that the government may be in the process of reversing course on this issue. I was gratified to hear that our local council Administration has pledged that no child will go hungry this half term.

Nevertheless, I doubt that people will forget that not once, but twice, when the Conservatives were challenged to feed children who need it, they had to be dragged kicking and screaming to do what every fair-minded person knows is the right thing to do.

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On a local level, I urge individuals, businesses, and charities to continue to work together to bridge the gaps until the Government catches up.

We are just about to enter the holiday season: the idea that a sizeable portion of the children of Peterborough would have to stand amidst the bright glow of lights in shop windows while their stomachs gnaw in hunger, should repulse us all.

It should shake the conscience of the most hardened soul. It should spur every elected official into action: we in the Labour Group will do what we can to ensure the children of Peterborough are fed.

We urge the Conservative Administration and our MP to have a change of heart and ensure the Government provides the relief that it should to those who so desperately need it.