A YORK MP has said people should focus on reducing child poverty rather than “picking over semantics” about how many children could lose out on free school meals under changes to benefits.

From April 1, families on universal credit will need to be earning less than £7,400 a year for children to be eligible for free school meals. The current threshold is a combined yearly income of less than £16,190 for families to be eligible.

Pupils currently on free school meals will not be affected but research by The Children’s Society estimated that more than 4,000 children in York could lose out under the change.

The Government questioned the figures, instead claiming that around 50,000 more children will benefit from free school meals by 2022.

But Rachael Maskell, Labour MP for York Central, said: “There’s a lot of confusion over this. The proposals the Government have put forward will affect future children.

“We should focus on why we have got so many people in poverty – those are the kind of questions we have to ask. To boast that it would help 50,000 more poor children in our country is a sign of shame.

“You just need to look at the Equality and Human Rights Commission report which showed how we will have a million and a half more children living in poverty in our country (by 2022).

“All primary school children should be able to access free school meals. We want every child to have the best chance of learning and resilience against poor health.”

At a debate in the House of Commons on Tuesday shadow education secretary Angela Rayner accused the Government of “pulling the rug” from underneath hundreds of thousands of poorer families with the changes, saying the current system would help more than a million extra children than the new scheme.

But Nigel Adams, Conservative MP for Selby and Ainsty, said Labour politicians were “scaremongering and misleading” the public over changes to free school meals.

He added: “Labour’s claim that one million children are to lose free school meals has been shown to be a big fat lie.

“Not a single child receiving free school meals will lose their entitlement. In fact, recent estimates suggest that by 2022, around 50,000 more children will benefit from a free school meal compared to the previous benefits system.

“This Government is committed to supporting children and I am glad that we can extend free school meals to more disadvantaged youngsters. It’s a pity that the Labour Party voted against extending free school meals earlier this week but no great surprise they chose to try and mislead the public.”