LABOUR has said that it will force a Commons vote today on free school meals after the government refused to extend the scheme through the October half-term break.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has urged Tory MPs to listen to campaigners including Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford by voting to extend free school meals over the holidays.

Yesterday Mr Rashford urged concerned constituents to contact their MPs ahead of the vote but added that a long-term framework was needed to tackle childhood hunger rather than “another sticking-plaster method.”

Labour said that nearly a million children living in Tier-2 and Tier-3 coronavirus restrictions stand to lose free school meals over the holidays.

New analysis by the House of Commons Library commissioned by shadow education secretary Kate Green found that 61 per cent of more than 1.4 million children (about 900,000) eligible for free school meals are living in areas subject to enhanced lockdown restrictions.

Labour warned that this will leave thousands of families facing a double whammy as half term approaches, with incomes and jobs at risk due to Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s new reduced coronavirus job-support measures and free school meals for kids removed.

Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner said: “It is a moral outrage that the government will happily spend over £6,000 a day on consultants and line the pockets of Serco shareholders in return for a test-and-trace system that has collapsed while leaving almost a million children in areas subject to Tier-2 and Tier-3 restrictions to go hungry.”

Tory Business Minister Nadhim Zahawi attempted to justify plans not to extend the free school meals scheme.

He claimed that a pilot scheme showed that parents preferred to pay “a modest amount” of £1 or £2 for food at school holiday clubs due to “not liking the labelling of [meals] being free.”