Hundreds of thousands of children will get free school meals throughout this summer after a campaign by Manchester United and England footballer Marcus Rashford.
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.
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.
Yesterday the government confirmed the scheme would still end when the school term ends in July, saying, ‘The PM will respond to Marcus Rashford’s letter as soon as he can – he has been using his profile in a positive way to highlight some very important issues.’
The government was scheduled to debate the issue with Labour opposition MPs today.
And just this morning, The Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey came in for huge criticism after a ‘tone deaf’ response to tweets he made this morning about families unable to access hot water.
In a tweet following the news, Rashford said: 'I don’t even know what to say. Just look at what we can do when we come together, THIS is England in 2020.'
The response to the footballer on social media has been huge - with some even calling on him to be the next PM. And only half joking.
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.
READ MORE: Marcus Rashford's Powerful Plea To MPs To Stop Millions Of Children From Going Hungry This Summer