DEVON County Council will be asked to ensure all eligible children receive free school meal vouchers for the Christmas and New Year holiday period.

The council this week said it will continue to work with district councils to ensure hardship support is available to vulnerable children and families across the county this winter and pledged extra funding to ensure no child goes hungry.

But Liberal Democrats group leader Cllr Alan Connett had said the announcement was ‘smoke and mirrors’ but certainly no food for hungry children and that the Conservatives running the council were playing politics with hungry children this half-term and for the holidays to come.

Now Labour group leader Cllr Rob Hannaford has put forward a motion to December’s full council meeting that would see the council resolve to use some of the allocated hardship funding to ensure that all eligible children in the Devon County Council area of responsibility receive free school meal vouchers for the Christmas and New Year holiday period.

Cllr Hannaford said: ‘I hope that this motion will clarify that we need leadership on this key issue from the county council directly. We will obviously work closely with our district colleagues and others, but at the end of day we are the education authority.

‘The government has totally misread the mood of the country on this problem, and it has now become a symbolic issue that has starkly highlighted again the widespread poverty and hardship that continues to blight our nation through the plight of hungry children.’

The motion will be debated at the December 3 full council meeting, as will

a petition started by East Devon councillor Joe Whibley, if 6,000 signatures are reached by November 24.

The Government had earlier this week referred to the £63 million that was allocated to local councils and suggested this was for free school meals.

But Cllr John Hart, leader of Devon County Council said: ‘This money was distributed in June and was intended to ensure that no one – children or adults – who was badly affected by the pandemic should go hungry. That money has already been spent in Devon in supporting the most vulnerable.

‘I am now writing to the Government to outline that due to our financial position we are limited in our ability to provide this support beyond the spring.’