The Labour Party voted against @Plaid_Cymru 's motion to extend free school meals to children of all families on Universal Credit or with no recourse to public funds, as Adam says below.

A lot of people have contacted asking why.

Read on https://twitter.com/DrRoundglasses/status/1339305599713103872

The Labour Party view themselves as the progressive, empathetic party;

The Labour Party accuse everybody else of being regressive and insular;

In a country with over a third of children living in poverty you'd think that a Labour government would want to do everything

possible to ensure that each child had the best start in life, and had a nourishing meal every day.

The key benefit of providing universal free school meals is that it would eradicate the stigma that prevents many families from accessing the offer as it currently exists.

129,000 school-age children in Wales are living below the UK poverty line;

There are 70,000 living in poverty in Wales who don't currently qualify for free school meals;

Wales provides fewer cooked free school meals than any other nation in the UK

Yet each and every Labour MS voted against the motion. Why?

Listening to the debate you'd be forgiven for believing that they supported the motion!

But in each of their contributions, there was a common thread.

Rhianon Passmore MS's contribution encompasses Labour's standpoint best:

"We still remain as a nation, despite recent inputs, on a 2010 income level."

"the reality of Government, compared to making up policies that rob Peter to pay Paul, or if the Tories do, with no countenance of the miserly budget Wales is drip fed from the Treasury—the reality of Government is that this... policy will have to come from somewhere"

So, there's a realisation that Wales doesn't have the ability to amend monetary or fiscal policies in order to answer Wales' needs

There's a ready admission that Westminster is screwing us over by not providing Wales with what we need to solve our problems

Yet...
Regardless of this understanding and realisation Labour continues to believe that the works better than an independent .

When will the penny drop?!
When will they accept that the inequality and poverty that our children suffer is rooted in this failed union?

The levels of child poverty in Wales, and the fact that we have to debate this, is reason enough for independence.

We can build a better, fairer, more equal Wales.

That journey starts with #IndyWales.