THIS IS A BETRAYAL

Nats accused of overpromising and failing to deliver as FM U-turns on free school meals for P6&7 pupils

- PAUL HUTCHEON

JOHN Swinney has been accused of "betrayal" after breaking a promise to give free school meals to all primary pupils.

The First Minister dumped support for a universal scheme despite pledging to "eradicate child poverty in office.

The SNP leader also failed to mention the drug deaths crisis in his first Programme for Government speech since taking over from Humza Yousaf.

Last night there was fury at the decision not to go ahead with the roll out of free school meals to P6 and P7 kids.

STUC general secretary Roz Foyer said: "Betrayal is the only word to describe this reversal and is a continuation of the Scottish Government's approach in overpromising but failing -time and time again - to deliver." Swinney's Programme for Government featured 14 Bills and came 24 hours after he announced £500million of cuts to public spending.

He said he was making "tackling child poverty" his government's top priority and urged a divided parliament to seek "common ground" on the issue.

But Swinney's U-turn on free school meals for every primary school pupil - a manifesto promise in 2021 - led to huge criticism.

SNP Ministers had already delivered for all pupils in P1-5 but delivering on the last two years has proved a problem.

In his legislative statement last year, then-FM Humza Yousaf focused on kids who received the Scottish Child Payment in P6 and P7 while keeping the commitment to "universal" rollout.

Swinney's statement yesterday dropped the word "universal".