Thursday 27 November 2008

Suffer the Children

Those free school meals for tiny little hungry children ...
The Statutory Instrument passed through Parliament today - a good thing! Once again, Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem members spoke out against it.

Amendments to the motion to pass came from Labour and from the Conservatives (I can't understand Liz Smith's positioning on anything much, she's a strange fish - maybe it was being a teacher in the private sector that skewed her views on state education?), but neither of these amendments
When Labour's Karen Whitefield rose to her feet to oppose feeding small children I was dumfoonert. She even said she visited a school breakfast club this morning (leave those kids alone woman) and that the school she was at didn't have enough money to provide free school meals. That'll be why there's money in the local government settlement from 2010 to pay for it then, eh?
The Lib Dems waffled about means-testing these 5-year olds, missing the point entirely about not stigmatising children.

28 MSPs voted against the motion - voted to keep food out of the mouths of small people. The Lib Dems were whipped to vote against free school meals!

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