00:00Taxpayer experts have disputed whether your buyback tax to pay for this free school meals policy would raise anything like what you claim
00:05How did you calculate the 2 billion figure and have you taken into account the taxpayer response?
00:10Well, actually it would have collected 2.2 billion last year
00:14But we're not saying that would raise that because we've taken into account the fact that companies might change their behavior
00:20So we're only claiming 1.4 billion
00:22And if you look at other experts like the Institute of Public Policy Research
00:26If you look what happened in the United States with similar policy
00:29It can raise a substantial amount way more than the policy of a free school meals for the children in poverty
00:36Which is so so important that will cost about half a billion pounds
00:40So making sure children get a hot meal at lunchtime if they're from the poorest backgrounds are really struggling on the cost of living
00:48It's so important. So we're proposing to raise a threshold of income up to
00:52£20,000 that would mean nearly a million children who are living in poverty would get a hot meal every day
00:59I think that should be a priority in a cost-of-living crisis. It really ought to be a way of
01:06Targeting our help to people who need it the most
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