Many constituents have contacted about the important issue of breeding cages for pheasants and partridges. The conditions in which these animals are kept is inhumane. The Animal Welfare Act states that it is an offence if a person fails to ensure that the needs of an animal are met to an extent required by good practice. These needs include the need to be able to exhibit normal behaviour patterns and a suitable environment. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ guide to breeding animals states that barren cages for breeding pheasants should not be used. The government needs to ensure that all breeders in the UK conform to these regulations.

The last Labour Government achieved much to end the cruel and unnecessary suffering of animals: the banning of hunting with dogs, securing an end to cosmetic testing on animals, banning fur farming and introducing the Animal Welfare Act 2006.

The current Conservative Government must do more to enforce policies that were implemented to improve animal welfare standards, and Labour will continue to hold them to account on this. 

A number of people have contacted me about the growing issue of children going hungry during the school holidays.

It is unacceptable that 3 million children are at risk of going hungry during the school holidays as a result of stagnant pay and the Tories’ withdrawal of free-school meals outside term time. The scale of the problem was demonstrated the Trussell Trust reporting a significant rise in demand from food banks over the summer holidays last year - with 67,506 three-day emergency food supplies distributed in July and August 2016, compared with 63,094 in the previous months.

Holiday hunger is devastating to a child’s life chances and worsens income inequality. Poorer children are at risk of starting the school term malnourished, sluggish and several weeks, if not months behind other children.

I fully support Frank Field MP’s bill to require local authorities to facilitate the delivery of programmes that provide free meals and activities for children during school holidays and to call on the government to give local councils the money they need to support children in poverty and meet the growing demand.

Without action, it is expected that over 5 million children will live in poverty by 2020. A Labour Government would work to end the scandal of child poverty through the introduction of a new Child Poverty Strategy, raising the minimum wage to a real living wage of £10 an hour, pausing and reforming the disastrous Universal Credit rollout and introducing universal free school meals.