ALBA councillor Chris McEleny has urged Inverclyde to speed up plans to provide free school meals to all primary pupils in the area.

All children in P1-P4 are already entitled to free lunches following a budget deal Mr McEleny struck with the ruling Labour administration when he was SNP group leader, in exchange for his then-party group backing the council administration's spending plans.

Earlier this year the Scottish Government announced it would put funding up for local councils to roll out universal free meals.

Mr McEleny now wants the council to accelerate this, with an early rollout of the policy extension covering all primary school pupils.

He says he hopes the council will be in a position to implement it immediately when schools return after summer in August.

Councillor McEleny said: “Free school meals are a step change policy in ensuring every young person has the same access to food, as well as putting a greater focus on a good diet for young people.

“This is a policy that I’ve long championed and I am delighted Inverclyde will soon benefit from every primary pupil being entitled to free school meals.

"This will mean about £340 a year is saved per pupil each year, this means more money will be in families pockets to spend on essentials."

Mr McEleny, who lost out on a seat at Holyrood last week after his new party did not receive enough regional list votes, says the free meals policy is now even more important in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis.

He also wants to push the free meals policy further, to include secondary schools.

He said: “As we recover from coronavirus, free school meals are part of a whole raft of policies we need to help reduce poverty and deprivation.

"I am very hopeful that the council will ensure every primary pupil can get a free school meal after the summer holidays.

"The next step then is to prioritise more free school meals for high school pupils as the school day only gets more expensive the older pupils get."