Financial pressures on parents during holidays

With the Easter Holidays coming up my thoughts turned to the problems faced by parents on low incomes over holiday periods.
Children are expensive enough at any time of year but for a family on a low income holidays present extra challenges on already limited finances.
Of the 13.2 million people living in poverty in the UK 54% have at least one child or more.
In Government, Labour has made some progress on addressing the issue of child poverty the number of children living in low income household has dropped from 3.4m in 1998/99 to 2.9m in 2006/07.
During term time children have access to free school meals, free fruit and a large proportion of their time taken up. However holidays can be a nightmare for parents on low incomes not only is there the issue of having to provide extra meals not only to your own children but often their friends as well but also time taken off work or childcare costs.
When growing up I lived in a household in poverty as did most of my friends true there are lots of play schemes that run over the some more so if you are lucky to live in Labour controlled Council area.
Areas of policy that could be looked at is a special holiday credit to help cover extra costs associated with holidays for low income households with children, which could be credited to Child Tax Credits or other benefits.
Of course the amount of extra holiday bonus could be adjusted to reflect that some families have more than on child.
The other benefit of such a credit would be add an injection of extra consumer spending into the economy.