Sarah Church, the Labour and Co-operative Candidate for South Swindon has written to Robert Buckland urging him to put Swindon’s poorest children before Party loyalty tomorrow, by voting against a Government plan to impose an income threshold on families currently receiving Universal Credit.
The policy, which the Government sought to sneak through without a vote, will mean over 3,700 of Swindon’s children, many growing up in poverty, will not be able to access a free school meal, according to the Children’s Society. The charity estimates it could affect over a million children across the country.
For some children, this could literally mean the difference between eating a hot meal that day, or going hungry.
As part of the same measure, the government is also planning to remove free childcare from those earning above the threshold.
For those Swindon families that are affected, the income threshold will create a cliff-edge, meaning some parents could be better off either reducing their hours, or not taking additional hours or pay rises, because moving just above the income threshold would leave them hundreds of pounds worse off for each child affected. This directly undermines the Government’s stated aim of Universal Credit, to make work pay.
The Government’s plans to restrict free school meals and free childcare will be brought to the Commons tomorrow (13th March), following an intervention from Labour to bring these heartless and short sighted plans to a binding vote.
Sarah Church, Labour’s parliamentary candidate for South Swindon, has written to Robert Buckland, calling on him to vote the plans down. Speaking about the Government plans, Sarah said:
“The Tories are trying to leave over a million children without access to free school meals, that’s potentially 3,700 in Swindon alone.
“If Robert Buckland votes to literally take hot dinners away from the children of his constituents, I don’t know how he will be able to hold his head high in our town.
“Tomorrow’s vote gives him an opportunity to show just whose side he is on; the poorest children in his constituency, or this Tory government imposing heartless cuts on low income families.
“I have written to Robert asking him to consider his priorities on Tuesday.”
