"According to our own research, if this policy were to be enacted almost 17,000 school chefs would lose their jobs, and the huge taxpayer investment into school kitchens - £150million - would have gone to waste.
"More importantly, many of the most vulnerable in our society would no longer have a healthy, nutritional and balanced meal, which is often the only hot meal that some children have a day.
"LACA urgently call on the Government to rethink this manifesto commitment, make it clear they will not be taking it forward, and reflect on the comments made by the current Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Rt. Hon Michael Gove who in 2014, called UIFSM a 'rarest of political treasures: a policy that has cross-party support'.”