Torbay children 'tired, hungry and cold' arriving at school

Call for more breakfast clubs in local schools

Children at a Torbay school are arriving in the classroom tired, hungry and cold because their parents are struggling to make ends meet.

The claim was made in a House of Commons debate by Torbay MP Steve Darling.

Speaking in a discussion on primary school breakfast clubs, he said he had made the discovery during a visit to an un-named primary school in the bay.

The Liberal Democrat told fellow MPs: “Tired, hungry and cold - that is how one headteacher told me a number of her pupils came to school feeling, when I visited a primary school in Torbay last week.

“I was impressed with how her team was supporting those youngsters, both emotionally and with material support, whether for hunger or for feeling cold. It was very sad that one of the pupils was showing a blanket to others because it was keeping them warm.”

Mr Darling called for more opportunities for youngsters in local schools to get warm meals, saying it would drive positive change for communities.

Slough Labour MP Tan Dhesi, who began the debate, said the Torbay MP had been ‘100 per cent right’, and went on: “I take this moment also to pay tribute to the amazing teachers and staff at schools who go way beyond the call of duty to look after children, and who are faced not only with young hungry children, but sometimes with children who do not even have clean uniforms because, with the cost of living pressures, their families cannot get their school uniforms washed regularly.”

Mr Dhesi said children were going hungry inside crumbling schools as a result of 14 years of ‘mismanagement’ by successive Conservative governments.

He said Labour would roll-out funding for breakfast clubs for primary school children across the country.