Angela Rayner admits she would 'love' free school meals for primary school children as Labor holds firm

Labour deputy leader, who received free school meals as a child, says she wants all primary school children eligible to the benefit, but said there was "no endless supply of money"

Angela Rayner spoke of her own experience of receiving free school meals as a child (

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Angela Rayner admitted she would 'love' to provide free school meals to all elementary students when she talked about getting free meals as a child.

But the deputy Labor leader resisted growing calls to offer free dinners to all primary school children, regardless of income, as she said there was 'no bottomless money ". Instead, she supported her party's pledge to provide free school breakfasts to children instead.

Talking about her own experience of having free school meals, Ms Rayner said: "For the first half of my day, I wasn't looking for education, I was like, 'How are we going to have dinner and what? I'm eating' because I was waiting for the free school lunch. So classes before school dinner, I didn't mind at all, I was hungry and I wasn't concentrating very well." /p>

The Mirror and the National Education Union are campaigning for all primary school children in England to get free school meals. But Ms Rayner said the economy was in a "terrible place", adding: "We have been very clear about the fiscal targets we need to meet."

Angela Rayner said the economy was in a "terrible situation" (

Picture:

Getty Images)

Ms Rayner, speaking at an Institute for Government event, continued: "We've looked at the evidence and know the free breakfast club will have the biggest impact and that's why we made it a priority to do that.

"If we enter government, the economic situation will not be great, so we have to set priorities and the priorities in this area, which I agree with, are to offer free school breakfasts rather than free schools. meals for every child. I would love to do that. But right now we say breakfast and I absolutely agree that this policy is the right thing...