Shadow Education Secretary calls for Gavin Williamson to resign
Shadow Education Secretary Kate Green has called for Education Secretary Gavin Williamson to resign.
Amid the free school meals scandal which has seen parents receive packages with barely enough food to feed their children, Ms Green said children's education and wellbeing is "too important to be left in the hands" of Mr Williamson.
"Gavin Williamson’s record - it’s flip-flopping, it’s last-minute decisions, it’s U-turns, it’s chaos for schools and parents and children," she told Kate Garraway and Ben Shephard on Good Morning Britain.
"I think patience has completely run out with Gavin Williamson now. I do think it’s time for him to go. Our children’s future, our children’s education, our children’s wellbeing is too important to be left in the hands of someone who plainly isn’t up to the job and I think it’s time for him to go."
There have been calls for the £15 allowance that the government makes for families to provide meals should be paid to the parents themselves in cash form rather than a food parcel or vouchers.
Discussing the idea on the show, Ms Green said: "Parents have said they could do a better job, get better value for money than what we saw in the food parcels earlier this week.
"We know that the new voucher scheme that the government is supposed to have for this lockdown hasn’t even come into effect yet. So we think the simplest, the easiest way of getting food to hungry children, allowing mums and dads to go down the shops this weekend to get the food they need for their children, is to make sure they’ve got enough cash to go into the supermarket and do that."
On how the money will be delivered to those who need it, the Shadow Education Secretary added: "Paying money is the simplest administrative procedure. Vouchers require extra administrative processes and we’ve got a benefits system that already directs money to low-income families.
"We don’t have to create an infrastructure to make these payments, we know who these families are. All we have to do is very swiftly make these cash transfers, these payments to their bank accounts so they can buy food for their children."