Rashford’s new food poverty plea

MARCUS RASHFORD will today renew his fight against food poverty with a petition he believes will shame the Government into action. The Manchester United forward was deeply disappointed last month by Education Secretary Gavin Williamson’s dismissive written reply to his plea for help and has made it clear he cannot be bought off by the MBE bestowed on him recently. Now he will attempt to take the general public with him, asking them to pledge support to #endchildfoodpoverty and effectively force the hand of Mr Williamson — whose reply to the 22-year-old was merely a list of existing Conservative Party policies. Rashford said: ‘Food poverty is never the child’s fault. Let’s protect our young. Let’s wrap arms around each other and stand together to say that this is unacceptable. Millions of children are finding themselves in the most vulnerable of environments and are beginning to question what it really means to be British. ‘I’m calling on you all to help me prove to them that being British is something to be proud of.’ Rashford’s petition coincides with data released by the Food Foundation which reveals 18 per cent of eight to 17-year-olds — 1.4million children — experienced ‘food insecurity’ over the summer holidays. That includes having to eat less and make food last longer because of lack of money to buy more, and children being hungry but not eating to avoid using up food. Rashford’s petition will ask supporters to back his plea that the Government immediately implement three key parts of the National Food Strategy policy. These include an expansion of free school meals to include every child from a household on Universal Credit or equivalent — an additional 1.5m kids under 16.