Filey MP defends decision to vote against funding for free school meals during holidays

The MP for Filey has been defending his decision to vote against funding free school meals during school holidays until Easter 2021.

Kevin Hollinrake says extending the benefit to everybody would mean those who really need the scheme would get less.

He said:

"I do realise that these are exceptional times which is why the government has made the benefits more generous; another £20 a week if you're on universal credit and why they've put £63 million into local authorities to provide support to those hardest hit by the crisis.

"Not everybody has been hit to the same degree and some people who have received a free school meal are in jobs where their incomes have risen during the crisis.

"To simply increase extend the benefit to everybody means you would give less to people who really are in need.

"Of course the campaign is an important thing and I'm delighted if Marcus Rashford took that invitation, I'd love to debate these matters with him.

"But the reality is the government has no money; all the money it distributes is collected from taxpayers and it has to be paid out.

"Marcus Rashford's campaign isn't just about providing free school meals in say Christmas and Easter for example, it's about doing this all the time.

"It's also extending the free school meals provision to a much wider cohort of people still on universal credit but on higher income, so it would be a much greater burden for the taxpayer.

"Now I've often spoken in Parliament on the need to increase the generosity of the benefits system but personally, do I want that done through a voucher system? No I don't.

"I think if that happens, it should just be we increase the generosity of welfare and give that money to people and let them make the decisions on how best to spend it.

"I see so many examples up and down the country where people have been generous to people on lower incomes, it's how society is supposed to operate.

"It shouldn't be the fact that we always look at government to try and roll out these programmes because government will inevitably be probably the most expensive way of doing it."