A Leeds restaurant has offered free meals to school children after MPs had voted against Manchester United star Marcus Rashford's free school meal plea.
According to analysis, more than 25,000 children in Leeds are facing the prospect of potentially going hungry during lockdown.
With October half term looming on the horizon while the city is in lockdown, senior politicians in Leeds have called on the government to do more.
However, Rashford saw a petition to properly fund free meals over the school holidays rejected by the UK government.
Following the vote, Rashford vowed to continue campaigning, writing on Twitter: “For as long as they don’t have a voice, they will have mine.”
The England striker, who succeeded in forcing a government U-turn on the withdrawal of holiday food vouchers earlier this year, vowed to keep fighting and said: "This is not going away anytime soon and neither am I..."
Since then, hundreds of businesses across the country have come forward to offer free meals - including Indian restaurant Mumtaz and Jah Jyot Curry, as well as Little Boy Boa.
Schoolchildren aged between four and sixteen will be able to get a free meal from the respective restaurants. You can find them all on their social media pages.
Mumtaz posted on Facebook said: "We will help if the MP's wont. Put politics to the side. No child should go hungry during half-term.
"We are doing this to do our part to support young children and families who truly need support.
"We are all struggling but sometimes the answer is to be be grateful and help more."
The co-owner of Mumtaz, Asad Arif, said: "This is NOT about politics. This is about doing our part to help.
"If you are a business owner, please do consider doing this yourself. Good only begets good.
"We have to help each other during these very difficult times.”
In response, a spokesperson for No 10 said Universal Credit was the best way to support struggling families.
Now the Labour Party has claimed there are 25,488 youngsters in Leeds who could go without meals over October half term.
Cllr Jonathan Pryor, Leeds City's Council 's executive member for Learning, Skills and Employment, said: "Children in Leeds have had a really rough year – this incompetent government should be supporting them, not leaving them to go hungry.
"We can all feel how much the new lockdown restriction are affecting our lives – and that’s making it much harder for families to earn a living and put food on the table. It is utterly ridiculous that at a time when we should all be pulling together this government is leaving local parents to fend for themselves.
"Ministers have been too slow at every stage during this crisis. So instead of waiting to the last minute they should act now and keep free school meals going through half-term – they should stand by local families just like we have stood with the rest of the country in fighting this terrible disease."
