Universal Credit will cause a negative impact to many of our children in Watford. The charity End child poverty has produced figures showing the Leggatts ward in North Watford that I represent has the highest incidence, followed by Holywell, then Vicarage.

The big question is why and what could we do about it?

Over the years the borough has stripped away services to its core and now we are left with minimal power to make the necessary changes to benefit the people in Watford.

This is one of the most frustrating things I have to deal with because what I constantly hear is: “Oh its not the borough’s duty. It used to be but now it’s either outsourced or it is the responsibility of the county.”

This week at the council meeting I asked my comrades to stop and think about how we can support the families and prevent our children from starving.

Up to the present, all families receiving Universal Credit (UC) have been eligible for free school meals.

This government wants to introduce a new earning limit from April 1, so that any family on UC earning more than £7,400 per year won’t be eligible for free school meals.

As we saw on Tuesday in Parliament they voted for the UC bill to be passed.

We are going backwards rather than forwards

These new rules will create a situation in the future where many working families will be punished for taking on extra hours or accepting a pay rise because they will have their free school meals taken away.

In some cases this could be the only hot meal the child will eat during the day. I fear the impact of this bill will increase child poverty and our children will starve.

Looking at the bigger picture and the impact this will have the following statistics have been brought to our attention.

• In Hertfordshire alone the number of children living in poverty is 35000

• The number of children taking a free school meal is 8,500

• Therefore, the number of children in poverty missing out on free school meals is 26,600.

We share a moral and social responsibly to ensure those in work can reach a decent standard of living and our children won’t starve.

- Cllr Bilqees Mauhoor is Labour councillor for Leggatts