Angela Mason speaking at Monday’s meeting

A FORMER deputy leader of Camden Council returned to her old stamping ground on Monday to suggest more children should be entitled to free school dinners.

Angela Mason, who left the Town Hall in May and now represents the Camden Women’s Forum, said that “thousands” more meals should be made available.

She said parents had complained to her group “about limited access to free school meals”, adding: “Eligibility for free school meals has not changed since 2018. If they’d kept up with anywhere near inflation, thousands of children would have access to free school meals.”

She was speaking at a Town Hall debate on the cost of living crisis.

“School uniforms is another big issue. Some schools have good schemes to exchange secondhand uniforms, others do not,” she said.

“Many parents suggested it would be much cheaper to have iron-on logos on jumpers and jackets.”

In a deputation to councillors, Unison branch secretary Liz Wheatley said: “After talking to our members, we want free school meals for all pupils from nursery to college. And we already know that in Islington, and in Tower Hamlets, they’ve extended free school meals to our nursery and primary school children, which is a good start. But it’s not enough.

She added: “We believe Camden needs to look at help towards childcare costs for staff because that’s a huge part of someone’s income.”

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Helen Connor, headteacher at Rhyl Community Primary School, told the meeting that staff were already looking out for hungry pupils, and warned that the cost of the meals were too prohibitive even for some parents who were now in work.

She added: “What next? I think for every primary school child and secondary school child to have free school meals would make a significant difference. It would mean that children are not hungry.

“For many it’s their main hot meal of the day and for some the only one, and that’s going to become increasingly important.”

She added: “We’ve got parents who’ve said they’re scared to put the heating on and they’ve asked if they can come to school to sit in the warmth during the school day to make a cup of tea. “Children are coming to school now, we’ve noticed, increasingly with inadequate clothing and not enough to eat for lunch.”

Camden’s finance chief Councillor Richard Olszewski said that Camden was in a position to fund more breakfast club provision in deprived areas. He said it would spend £300,000 to do this, using money generated by an energy surplus at the publicly-owned waste plant run by the North London Waste Authority.

“We will commission a specialist charity to extend for the breakfast provision in 25 of our most deprived schools, enabling children who are in receipt of free school meals to also receive free breakfasts as well,” he said.