Haringey Conservatives have urged Labour-run Haringey to adopt a flagship Labour policy from Islington, where Labour is in opposition to the Lib Dems.

The Islington Labour Group has urged the Lib Dem-run Council to provide all children under the age of 11 with free school meals, regardless of their parents' income. This, they say, could be done through cutting down on general waste, the PR budget and cutting the amount of cash paid to councillors.

Justin Hinchcliffe, Chairman of Tottenham Conservatives, has urged Labour-run Haringey Council to adopt this scheme and give local parents a much-needed boost in these difficult, 'credit crunch' times.

He explained, "This is a great idea for many reasons:

1) With the credit crunch kicking in, it will really help the hard-pressed family budget.

2) It can be a great way of tackling childhood obesity too: many kids at the moment are opting out of school meals and using lunch-money from their parents to buy junk food. Parents would be much less likely to give in to pressure for lunch money from their kids if they knew that a healthy alternative was on offer at the school 'free of charge'.

3) This scheme would also help to make the school meals service generally more viable: catering for more kids would help bring economies of scale and allow good healthy meals to be provided for a lower cost per child"

Mr. Hinchcliffe added:"'Labour-run Haringey should listen to their Islington colleagues and adopt this policy immediately. Labour could do it here by immediately scrapping Haringey People, their propaganda sheet, and cutting the salaries of fatcat councillors and officers. If Haringey Labour rejects this idea, people will correctly assume that they say one thing in opposition, and do the complete opposite when in power".

Background:

Richard Watts, Islington Labour's spokesperson for Children added: "When the council's budget comes in February, we will be proposing free school meals for every child in Islington. It is a bold proposal and it will make a difference to the lives of ordinary people across the borough. Not only would such an expansion improve the take-up of healthy school dinners, it would also mean that more children receive healthy, nutritious school meals."

ENDS