School meals subsidy under attack

THE Taxpayers’ Alliance has criticised a flagship Hull Council policy of subsidising school meals.

The Labour-led administration passed its emergency budget last week, including allocating £500,000 to fund a 50p cut in the price of primary school meals.

Andrew Allison, national grassroots co-ordinator of the alliance, described Labour’s spending plans as a “fantasy budget”, and said: “People who can’t afford it should be helped and that’s fine, but it may be some parents send their kids to school earning £100,000 a year. That £500,000 could go on other things.

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Parents of children aged 11, 13, and 15 are not going to benefit from this and it’s not their job to subsidise school meals for primary school children in these economic times.”

But Labour hit back, with finance portfolio holder Phil Webster saying: “If the TPA would like to revisit the results of the May election they will find that 28,000 people were happy to vote for us. I would like to know how many people voted for them, as a guess I suspect none.

“If these people want to affect policy let them propose a manifesto in May and test their beliefs with the electorate.”

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