Marcus Rashford: Manchester United forward launches petition to further tackle child hunger

ByEurosport

Updated 15/10/2020 at 08:32 GMT

The Manchester United forward was awarded an MBE last weekend for services to vulnerable children. One of the three recommendations to the UK government is to extend the free school meals programme with numbers registering for the scheme estimated to be rising.

Marcus Rashford

Image credit: Getty Images

Marcus Rashford has launched a petition calling on the government to allocate their budget to further tackle child hunger in the United Kingdom.

The 22-year-old, as part of the #endchildfoodpoverty campaign supported by the Child Food Poverty Task Force Rashford set up, has put forward three National Food Strategy recommendations.

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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Nearly a million more children, on top of the 1.4 million who have been claiming free school lunches during the Covid-19 pandemic, are estimated to have registered for free school meals in the last month.

The petition can be signed here.