Manchester United’s Marcus Rashford online petition to expand access to free school meals during school holidays has garnered over one million signatures.
The End Child Food Poverty petition, which was launched by the England striker on 15 October, passed the milestone shortly before 5 pm on Wednesday, 28 October 2020.
Rashford called for government support for three recommendations from their National Food Strategy. However, the 22-year-old’s campaign was rejected when put forward for a vote in Parliament by Labour.
Nevertheless, support has been shown to the movement by an ever-growing number of councils and businesses by offering free food to children during the current half-term holiday.
The football player has been awarded an MBE for his work after successfully lobbying the government into a U-turn over its free school meals policy during the lockdown.
Meanwhile, the Parliamentary Petitions office revealed that Rashfod’s petition is only the fifth petition to have reached one million signatures on the website and it is the first time since the general election that the government has been presented with a petition that has exceeded one million signatures.
The #endchildfoodpoverty campaign is supported by Rashford’s Child Food Poverty Task Force, 20 charities and key names in the food industry.
Their demand is basically for governmentto allocate sufficient budget to the three National Food Strategy recommendations, as part of an urgent recovery package for vulnerable children this autumn.
The recommendations are:
- Expansion of free school meals to every child from a household on Universal Credit or equivalent, reaching an additional 1.5m children aged between seven and 16
- Expansion of holiday provision (food and activities) to support all children on free school meals, reaching an additional 1.1m children
- Increasing the value of the Healthy Start vouchers to £4.25 per week (from £3.10) and expanding into all those on Universal Credit or equivalent, reaching an additional 290,000 pregnant women and children under the age of four
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