LABOUR is calling for a “transformation” in family support during the lockdown, as more than a million children will face a “postcode lottery” in free school meals provision this week.

Children who are learning at home during the coronavirus pandemic will be on half-term break from Monday until Friday.

Despite a widespread campaign for Tory ministers to provide free school meals to more than 1.4 million children over this half-term, they have decided not to.

Labour has called on the government to extend free school meals across all school holidays this year and establish a cash payment system to ensure families receive the full value of support.

The call follows a recent scandal in which government-appointed private company Chartwells delivered boxes of meagre provisions to children learning at home.

As a response to the backlash, the Department for Education decided to relaunch its national voucher scheme on January 18.

But Labour said the government should give parents cash instead, as they should have the choice to shop wherever they want.

The party has also demanded a stop in the planned cut to universal credit, which could push a further 200,000 children into poverty, and for central government to give more cash to councils to prevent the planned rise in council tax of up to 5 per cent.

There were already 4.2 million children living in relative or absolute poverty in 2018/19, an increase of 600,000 over the previous seven years, according to the Social Mobility Commission.

Shadow education secretary Kate Green is scheduled to meet families, headteachers, foodbank providers and local councillors in the Labour-run borough Hammersmith and Fulham on Monday.

There are 245,915 children eligible for free school meals in London, including, 3,454 in Hammersmith and 2,092 in Chelsea and Fulham.

Ms Green said: “A decade of Conservative government had eroded families’ safety nets with poverty rates rising even before the pandemic.

“The last year has shone a light on the impacts of poverty on health, wellbeing and learning.

“As we rebuild after this pandemic, we must deliver a transformation in support for families, starting with cancelling the planned cut to universal credit and guaranteeing provision of free school meals across all school holidays this year.”