Marcus Rashford wins Government fight for free school meals
The government pledged £120million after the footballer's campaign.
Last updated 23rd May 2022
Hundreds of thousands of children in England will get free school meals throughout this summer after a campaign by Manchester United and England footballer Marcus Rashford. The one-time pot of money will ensure that pupils who qualify for free school meals in England will be given supermarket food vouchers to cover the six-week summer holiday.
It's a huge u-turn for the Government, who only last night released a statement saying the scheme - worth £15 a week for the most vulnerable children - would stop in July when term ended.
The footballer took to Twitter to express his joy, 'I don't even know what to say. Just look at what we can do when we come together, THIS is England in 2020'.
In a deeply personal letter, Marcus Rashford had called on the government to extend the scheme throughout the summer due to the economic uncertainty in the country.
Urging his followers to share his letter with their MPs, Rashford earlier this week recounted his own experience with poverty and hunger as a child, stating ’the system was not built for families like mine to succeed, regardless of how hard my mum worked.’
Rashford, who has four siblings, was raised by a single mother, Melanie, who worked full-time on minimum wage and says the family relied on ‘breakfast clubs, free school meals and the kind actions of neighbours, coaches, food banks and soup kitchens’ to survive.
‘Whilst 1.3 million children in England are registered for free school meals, one quarter of these children have not been given any support singe the school closures were ordered,’ Rashford wrote in his letter. ‘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, without a small percentage of their nutritional needs met during this period.’
Imploring MPs to ‘find your humanity’, he asked the Government to reconsider the decision to cancel the food voucher scheme over the Summer holiday period following announcements it would end in July.
The national voucher scheme was introduced in March to help poorer families feed their children during lockdown, with ministers stating last week it had ‘always been clear’ it would end when schools closed for holidays in July.