Archbishop urges PM to stop politicising child poverty

THE Archbishop of Canterbury has urged the Prime Minister to stop “politicising” child poverty, as religious leaders back Marcus Rashford’s free school meals campaign.

Manchester United and England footballer Rashford was made an MBE in the Queen’s birthday honours list following his efforts to ensure that children in need received meals across the summer.

The 22-year-old striker forced a Government about-turn on free school meal vouchers for eligible pupils over the summer holidays after speaking out about how similar schemes had helped him as a child.

Now, he is reiterating his calls for free school meals to continue over the halfterm break.

The Most Rev Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, along with Cardinal Nichols, the Archbishop of York, and other religious leaders have today written to the Prime Minister to call for the urgent creation of a cross-party commission to tackle child poverty in England.

In the letter, they say: “[In] this second wave of the coronavirus pandemic and what will no doubt be a difficult winter for many, we are writing as faith leaders about our growing concerns about hunger and poverty, especially among children.

“With the help of Marcus Rashford’s inspiring campaign, the pandemic has brought the issue of child hunger and poverty into the light. However, this is not a new problem. The rising use of food banks, most of them run by churches, synagogues, temples, gurdwaras and mosques, is the extreme and visible manifestation of a much broader and deep-seated problem.”

According to data recently published by the End Child Poverty campaign, in 2018-19, 30 per cent of UK children were in poverty, defined as children in households with incomes after subtracting housing costs of less than 60 per cent of the median.

The religious leaders added: “Instead of politicising this issue and arguing over individual policies, we urgently need to establish a cross-party commission with the mandate and resources to tackle child poverty in England, once and for all.”

A government spokesman said: “We are committed to making sure every child gets the best start in life.

“That’s why we have raised the living wage, ended the benefit freeze and funded free childcare. This is on top of £9.3 billion extra welfare support during the pandemic.”