At yesterday’s meeting of Hertfordshire County Council, the Conservatives turned down a proposal from the Liberal Democrats to top up – by £31 per child – the Government’s £50 part-funding of vital support over the summer holiday for each of the 34,400 children receiving free school meals.

The extra money would have meant that children who get free school meals in term time would have got vouchers for the cost of these meals over the summer holidays – as they did for holidays earlier in the year.

Conservative councillors said we “need to get back to normal” which apparently means not feeding children during school holidays. I don’t think that’s the sort of “normal” we should be trying to recreate.