Issue - meetings

Motion

Meeting: 07/12/2022 - Council (Item 70)

A period of an hour and a half is allocated to consider the motions on notice at this meeting. This may only be extended with the agreement of the Council.

Minutes:

The Chairman explained that 2 Motions on Notice had been received for consideration at this meeting. However, it was confirmed that Councillor C. Hotham had withdrawn his Motion on Notice for this meeting.

Free School Meals

Council considered the following Motion on Notice that was submitted by Councillor P. McDonald:

"Over 3.8 million children in the UK currently live below the poverty line and for those young people the price of school meals is prohibitive. In addition, with the cost-of-living crisis that is predicted to increase rapidly.

Council request our MP to lobby the Government to implement free school meals."

The Motion was proposed by Councillor McDonald and seconded by Councillor L. C. R. Mallett.

In proposing the Motion, Councillor McDonald commented that it had been well documented that children’s education was being impacted during the current cost of living crisis. As a result, it had been reported that teachers were providing financial support and making referrals to Food Banks for needy families. Members were asked to note that it should not be the responsibility of teachers to provide this sort of care to their pupils and that more could be done by Government to help prevent this occurring in the future.

The suggestion was made that Free School Meals could go some way in mitigating the financial crisis that many families were currently experiencing. It was reported that it was expected that children living in households experiencing Fuel Poverty was set to rise by 38.6%. It was also suggested that over 3.8m children in the UK were living below the poverty line and that a positive and robust response was required. Furthermore, Councillor McDonald called upon Bromsgrove District Council to lobby the local MP to act and introduce Free School Meals for all children in the District.

Following the presentation of the Motion, there was a query regarding the wording of the Motion. It was highlighted that there was ambiguity regarding whether the Motion was to ‘implement free school meals’ to all children as stated in the proposed Motion, or if it was for all school children within the District as outlined in the preamble above. If it was the case that it be for all school children, the question was raised as to whether this would also include private school pupils and international pupils. Councillor McDonald confirmed that the Motion was concerned with the implementation of free school meals for all children in the District of Bromsgrove and clarified that the Motion should read as follows:

Council request our MP to lobby the Government to implement free school meals for all children in the District of Bromsgrove."

The Portfolio Holder for Finance and Governance responded to the Motion and in doing so reported that in October, each year every school ... view the full minutes text for item 70