This week's Community Column is written by Brendan O'Hara, the SNP MP for Argyll and Bute.
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Last week, with winter approaching and with the UK in the grip of a second wave of a deadly global pandemic, I spoke in the House of Commons urging the UK Government to continue to feed one and a half million poor, disadvantaged primary school children in England during the school holidays.
Incredibly, the Tory government refused, arguing that it wasn’t the job of the government to feed poor children.
Listening to a procession of well-heeled, highly-paid, hugely-privileged Tory MPs turn this into an ideological or philosophical argument about, as one of them actually said “nationalising children”, was one of the worst things I’ve witnessed in my five years at Westminster.
Not only was what the Tories did cruel, callous and heartless, evoking memories of a Dickensian attitude to poverty, but I believe it spectacularly misread the mood of the people.
That public mood has been so brilliantly personified in Marcus Rashford, the English international footballer, who has emerged as the champion of England’s poor children.
READ MORE: Helensburgh's food bank welcomes Nicola Sturgeon pledge on free school meals
Marcus Rashford hasn’t forgotten his past or abandoned those children still trapped in poverty.
But if the Tories thought that giving him an MBE would shut him up, then they completely misread the measure of this highly impressive young man.
And to see five of the six Scottish Tory MPs – their leader was Missing in Action – traipse through the House of Commons voting lobby to take food from poor English children, when just the month before they’d said the exact opposite in relation to children in Scotland, was as bewildering as it was hypocritical.
Thankfully, we in Scotland didn’t have to have this argument, as Nicola Sturgeon had already committed £10 million of Scottish Government money to ensure that vulnerable children would continue to be fed during the school holidays, up to and including the Easter break of 2021.
* Editor's note: On Saturday the Prime Minister phoned Marcus Rashford to tell him that the government would provide free school meals in England over the Christmas, Easter and summer holidays. Mr O'Hara's column, in its original form, was written before news broke of the UK Government's change in policy.
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