Children in a South London borough are at risk of going hungry this summer after the council ended the provision of free school meal holiday vouchers, opposition councillors have said. Conservative-led Wandsworth Council is discontinuing the supermarket vouchers from the 2026 summer holidays onwards, following changes to national funding rules.
The Government replaced the Household Support Fund with the Crisis Resilience Fund on March 31, asking councils to move away from vouchers towards longer-term financial help. This ended the automatic provision of holiday vouchers for all children receiving free school meals. Wandsworth Labour has launched a petition, signed by 536 people, calling for the vouchers to be continued this summer.
Some councils, including Hackney, Sutton, Cambridgeshire, and Bath and North East Somerset, are still providing vouchers through their own budgets for part of the summer. Wandsworth Labour’s petition states that more than 10,000 children received £20 a week in vouchers under the previous Labour administration from 2022 to May this year.
Conservative councillor George Crivelli said: “Wandsworth Labour need to petition the Labour Government, not the council. This is a change to their own government’s funding rules, which we are doing our best to mitigate.” A council spokesperson added that the council is offering other support, including the Holiday Activities and Food programme, Magic Breakfast holiday packs, and additional local help.
