OVER 10,000 children in Oxfordshire are eligible for free school meals.

According to the House of Commons Library, 10,127 children across the county were known to be eligible for free school meals in January 2020.

Yesterday, however, Tory MPs voted against extending free school meals to these children over the school holidays. 

Read here: Villagers go head to head with Oxford College

This is how many children were eligible for free school meals across the county's constituencies:

  • Oxford East: 2,646
  • Oxford West and Abingdon: 1,277
  • Henley: 1,070
  • Witney: 1,373
  • Wantage: 1,669
  • Banbury and North Oxford: 2,092

Yesterday, MPs voted whether to extend the free school meals over the holidays. 

For more information read here: How did Oxfordshire MPs vote to extend free school meals?

The motion, proposed by Labour, called for an extension of free school meals over the school holidays until Easter 2021.

The Conservative majority means the proposal was defeated. 

There was a 322 Conservative vote majority compared to a 261 vote minority.

Across the whole country, only five Tory MPs voted for the extension.

All of Oxfordshire's Conservative MPs voted against the extension. 

Oxfordshire's Tory MPs are:

  • John Howell (Henley)
  • Robert Courts (Witney)
  • David Johnston (Wantage)
  • Victoria Prentis (Banbury and North Oxfordshire)

Liberal Democrat MP Layla Moran and Labour MP Anneliese Dodds voted for the extension.

A Senior Labour councilor, Sean Woodcock, has openly criticised Victoria Prentice's decision to vote against the extension.

He said the decision means that 2,092 children in the Bicester and Banbury constituency are at risk of going hungry.

Read more about this here 

The vote against the extension means the 1.4 million disadvantaged children across the UK will be at risk of going hungry.

The October half-term comes as millions of families face the risk of job losses and millions of families face tighter restrictions.

Footballer, Marcus Rashford, was the first to prose the extension of school meals. 

Mr Rashford posted on his Twitter last night after the vote that 'this is not politics, this is humanity'.

He added: "A significant number of children are going to bed tonight not only hungry but feeling like they do not matter because of the comments that have been made today."