Disappointment on lack of commitment to holiday meals for children in Hastings

Open letter to Ms Sally-Ann Hart, MP for Hastings and Rye, and Cllr Keith Glazier, Leader of East Sussex County Council

We write as the borough councillors in Hastings of some of the wards with the highest densities of child poverty in the UK to express our disappointment at the failure of both of you to show the courage and leadership necessary, during this crisis, to guarantee every child, in our wards, a meal every day.

Not content to fail us once, Ms Hart, you have failed the children of our town thrice: first failing to lobby your government to support Marcus Rashford, second by voting against the Labour motion on the 21st October and finally by seeking to defend your position with words as parsimonious as your actions.

Cllr Glazier, you have directly abandoned our most vulnerable children to be hungry and thus attended upon by the emissaries of future illness and stunted life chances. You had the power, with a phone call, as the leader of ESCC, to extend free school meals during the school holidays.

How are either of you ‘levelling-up’ for the most vulnerable if they are denied the basic necessity of food security? Over one hundred years ago, when fighting to introduce Free School Meals, this is what David Lloyd-George, future wartime prime minister, had to say about the attitudes of the Conservatives opposing him. You, by your actions, have made these words equally true today:

“There are many in this Country blessed by Providence with great wealth and if there are amongst them people who grudge out of their riches a fair contribution towards the less fortunate then they are very shabby rich people.”

We will finish this open letter with a celebration for our network of local business people, our local charities and faith organisations and particularly our hospitality sector, who despite fearing for their own economic survival are still reaching out to provide meals for our children.

To all of these champions in our community we give our sincerest thanks.

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