Plaid Cymru-led councils want to offer free school meals to all secondary school students within five years, says party leader Adam Price.
Free meals are already being extended to all children in primary school as part of Plaid’s collaboration agreement with Labor Ministers in the Senedd.
Mr Price will say at his party’s spring conference: “We will begin to build a Wales free from hunger and poverty”.
Plaid Cymru leads four of the 22 Welsh councillors, with elections due in May.
The rollout of the universal £200million free school meals scheme for primary school pupils is expected to start in September.
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Speaking in Cardiff, Mr Price will say that the free school meal pledge “gets rid of dinner debt and removes the stigma associated with free lunch and means children at a formative stage in their development can have a healthy, warm received meal.
“Because hungry children don’t learn, don’t grow and reach their true potential.”
The councils, led by Plaid Cymru, he will say, “will commit to setting the target and begin planning immediately to expand universal free school meals to all secondary school students within the next five years.”
“By providing free school meals for all, we will begin to build a Wales free from hunger and poverty.”
In the last local elections in Wales in 2017, Plaid Cymru made modest gains overall, increasing their majority in Gwynedd and becoming the largest party in Anglesey.
More recently there was disappointment for Plaid in last year’s election in Senedd.
The party won just 13 of the 60 seats in the Welsh Parliament, losing the main constituency of Rhondda.
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