[ad_1]
Footballer Marcus Rashford called on ministers to deliver a guaranteed ‘meal a day’ to all schoolchildren in England in financially struggling families, warning that his campaign to end child food poverty still had ‘a million kilometers to cover ”.
In a videotaped hearing with the Commons Petitions Committee, the Manchester United and England striker reiterated his call for a review of the free school meals system, saying the government was too slow to implement. takes action when the coronavirus has struck, which also results in. many families “found themselves with nothing”.
“The main point is that children and families… need the reassurance that when they fall they will have someone to lean on, they will be protected,” he said.
“They [ministers] should have had things in place to assure people that they won’t hit bottom and get no help. Because too many people I have spoken to, families and their children, they have reached this point and they have had to rebuild themselves. And to me, that’s not fair.
Rashford made two of his initial demands – providing meals and activities to low-income families during school vacations and expanding the Healthy Start Voucher program – but also called for a large-scale overhaul. of the free school meals system.
“It looks like we’ve made some progress, but in my mind we still have a million kilometers to go,” he said.
He called on the government to lower the eligibility threshold for free school meals so that an additional 1.7 million children from low-income families benefiting from universal credit can qualify for assistance with school meals. The Child Poverty Action Group has estimated that two in five children living below the poverty line are not entitled to free school meals.
The footballer was questioned by the chairman of the Commons Petitions Committee, Labor MP Catherine McKinnell. Rashford’s petition last year garnered more than 1.1 million signatures from the public, sparking the hearing.
Rashford said he was optimistic the government recognized the need to change the system of free school meals. “I think once they review it, they will see for themselves, and the closer they are to the people they are helping, the more likely they are to change …
He added, “I believe if the government had the information I had, and spoke to the people I spoke to, from all parts of the country, they would want to look at it and change it themselves.
The committee’s live hearing takes place on Thursday, with testimony from anti-poverty charities and the head of the government-sponsored National Food Strategy, Henry Dimbleby.
McKinnell called on the government to outline any plan it had to come up with a long-term strategy to tackle food insecurity and child food poverty.
Source link
