SNP Government providing £10 million for school meals over holidays
More than 2000 children across the Stirling Council area will benefit from extra funding to extend free school meals over the Christmas and Easter holidays.
£10 million has been made available by the SNP Government to enable councils to continue to provide free school meals through the winter breaks, with future funding confirmed to extend support over Easter.
On Wednesday, Tory MPs voted to reject a plan to extend free school meals into the school holidays, arguing that it was not the job of schools to “regularly provide food during the school holidays”.
No Scottish Tory MP voted to support the plan, despite recent indications from Douglas Ross that he wishes to end the Tories’ opposition free school meals provision.
SNP MSP Bruce Crawford said:
‘Many families in Stirling are under real financial pressure at the moment. With the UK government’s furlough scheme set to prematurely end in less than two weeks, that number will unfortunately only deteriorate further.
‘The Scottish Government’s decision to extend the free school meals scheme will be a great relief for many hard-pressed households. This important investment will support around 2000 children and young people across Stirling, helping families meet the cost of meals over Christmas, February and Easter holidays.
‘The Tory government in Westminster had the opportunity to support thousands of vulnerable families, but refused to do so. It’s clear they have a lot to learn from the SNP’s approach to tackling food insecurity – and building a social security system based on fairness, dignity and respect.’
Notes: https://public.tableau.com/profile/sg.eas.learninganalysis#!/vizhome/Covid19ELCandHubs/Introduction
