Marcus Rashford Embarks On Campaign To End Child Food Poverty In Britain

1 September 2020, 14:09

Footballer Marcus Rashford creates child food poverty task force

Marcus Rashford has set up a task force as part of his latest campaign to end child food poverty in Britain.

Footballer Marcus Rashford successfully campaigned for the government’s U-turn on summer school holiday meal vouchers earlier this year, and the 22-year-old is now continuing his efforts to try and end child food poverty in Britain.

Rashford has set up a task force backed by huge brands including ASDA and Kelloggs to fight for long-term change with the aim of achieving three key goals, in partnership with FareShare and the Food Foundation.

In a letter given to MPs on Tuesday morning, Rashford outlined the three policy recommendations of the national food strategy.

The three goals are:

- Expansion of free school meals to every child from a household on universal credit or equivalent, reaching an additional 1.5 million 7-16 year olds.

- Expansion of holiday provision (food and activities) to support all children one free school meals, reaching an additional 1.1 million children.

- Increasing the value of the healthy start vouchers to £4.25 a 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.

The plan calls on chancellor Rishi Sunak to fund the three policy recommendations from the national food strategy, a report highlighting huge economic and health inequalities which will be worsened by the coronavirus pandemic.

Huge brands including Deliveroo, Iceland, Kelloggs, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Aldi and Tesco are supporting the campaign.

The food strategy was written by Leon founder Henry Dimbleby and was commissioned by the government, but MPs are yet to comment on its recommendations.

It comes three months after Rashford successfully campaigned for the government to provide free school meals throughout the summer holidays this year.

In his letter to MPs today, the sportsman wrote that the U-turn was “only ever going to support this issue in the long-term.”

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