Business of the House

Alex Norris Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

I congratulate the hon. Lady and all the other community shareholders. I am sure she will be there pulling a pint at some point over the weekend, and we will want to see a photograph of that. She is right; pubs in our communities are vital. They bring people together and provide somewhere to chat and share views about Brexit and all manner of things. They are the venue for many happy discussions. We appreciate the importance of the pub. That is why the Government have sought to keep taxes down on a pint of beer and a glass of wine, and we are doing everything we can from both a fiscal and community support point of view to keep our pubs going.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

Holiday hunger is a scourge in communities like mine, and for too many young children, their free school meal is the best and sometimes only nutritious meal they get. That stops during the holidays, and we have a challenge in this place to tackle that. In the meantime, my community does not want to wait for long-term strategies but wants to get on right away. That is why I am supporting a consortium of organisations, led by the Active Partners Trust, that are making a bid to the Department for Education for a scheme that would feed and provide activities for 2,200 young people in my community in the holidays. I do not expect an explicit commitment to that from the Leader of the House today, but might she help by providing Government time to debate that or another opportunity for me to raise my support for this important bid?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on that bid and wish him success with it. All Members are aware of children in their constituencies who suffer from holiday hunger. In my constituency, there are also children who would prefer to be at school than at home because of not just hunger but the way they are treated during the school holidays, which is unacceptable in our society. The Government are seeking to do all manner of things to improve the plight of those children. I encourage him to raise that excellent initiative at Education questions on Monday 4 February.