Local Organisations And Councils Ass Their Support To Marcus Rashford’s Campaign
Controversy over the UK government’s plans to get rid of free school meals for children of school age has continued to grow with many different local councils and other companies including restaurants and cafes volunteering to step in to ensure that children are kept well fed during the half term break. The campaign was launched by Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford who went through a similar experience when he was younger and had difficulty affording food when at school due to difficult circumstances.
As part of his campaign, he created a petition to gather as many signatures as possible to force a debate in parliament to bring back free meals for children of school age. So far this petition has gathered over eight hundred and ninety five thousand signatures which means that it will be debated in parliament as to have a debate, a petition must have over a hundred thousand signatures.
“Whilst 1.3 million children in England are registered for free school meals, one quarter of these children have not been given any support since the school closures were ordered.
“We rely on parents, many of whom have seen their jobs evaporate due to Covid-19, to play substitute teacher during lockdown, hoping that their children are going to be focused enough to learn, with only a small percentage of their nutritional needs met during this period.
“This is a system failure and without education, we’re encouraging this cycle of hardship to continue. To put this pandemic in to perspective, from 2018-2019, nine out of 30 children in any given classroom were living in poverty in the UK.
“This figure is expected to rise by an additional one million by 2022. In England today, 45% of children in black and minority ethnic groups are now in poverty.”
That’s according to a social media post shared by Marcus Rashford who is drawing on his own experience to make the lives of young school children better and more manageable to deal with.
The campaign has already forced the government in to making some changes as more children will have been receiving free school meals during term time. This has been rebuffed though as Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said ,
“I totally understand the issue of holiday hunger,” he said. “The debate is, how do you deal with it.”
He said the government will “do everything in our power to make sure that no kid, no child goes hungry”.
“We are very proud of the support we have given, I have said repeatedly throughout this crisis that the government will support families and businesses, jobs and livelihoods, across the country,” he said. “We’re going to continue to do that.
“We don’t want to see children going hungry this winter, this Christmas, certainly not as a result of any inattention by this government – and you are not going to see that.”
The Prime Minister has been pushing more people on low incomes to apply for Universal Credit, however due to the nature of the benefit and the number of bills and outgoings people have, this doesn’t stretch very far and more people have been urging the Prime Minister to have a change of heart and reinstate free meals for all children of school age.
The campaign has also been backed by many members of the Conservative Party
There have been many members of the Conservative party who have the opposite view including Ben Bradley.
The Tory MP for Mansfield tweeted on Friday: “At one school in Mansfield 75% of kids have a social worker, 25% of parents are illiterate. Their estate is the centre of the area’s crime. One kid lives in a crack den, another in a brothel. These are the kids that most need our help, extending FSM doesn’t reach these kids.”
If you feel that you may want to add your backing to the campaign and sign the petition, please visit: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/554276/
