Trending
Marcus Rashford urges Boris Johnson not to axe £20 universal credit lifeline
The footballer has stressed the impact the £20 cut will have on millions of families across the country
Marcus Rashford has urged the government to abandon its plan to cut the £20 universal credit uplift and instead tackle the ongoing ‘child hunger pandemic’.
The Manchester United and England footballer, who last year lead the fight to a historic government U-turn for free school meals for children across the UK, has stressed that millions of people will ‘lose a lifeline’ when the extra money is scrapped next month.
He said, as per The Guardian: “Instead of removing vital support, we should be focusing on developing a long-term roadmap out of this child hunger pandemic.
“On October 6th, millions lose a lifeline. It’s a move that Child Poverty Action Group says will raise child poverty to one in three.”
The twenty-three year old footballer has also urged the government provide long-term funding for food and activities during school holidays and expand the Healthy Start voucher scheme to households earning £20,000 or less after benefits.
Executive director of the Food Foundation Anna Taylor, who is working alongside Rashford, said food insecurity was ‘surging and is set to get a lot worse’.
She said: “It takes its toll not just on the wellbeing of children, but also on wider society. Getting ahead of this crisis is the litmus test of the government’s ambition to level up.
“Stopping the cut to universal credit and extending free school meals to poor children who currently miss out would provide a minimum protection for at-risk children. It is baffling that currently the government is planning neither. That’s why it is so important that everyone gets their voices heard and asks their MP to support this in the forthcoming spending review.”
The £20 universal credit rise, which was introduced during the pandemic last year and impacted over 5.8 million universal credit claimers, is set to be axed next week on October 6th.
The government’s argument is that as the economy opens back up, the focus needs to shift to getting people back to work.
Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng told BBC Breakfast that the government had spent a ‘huge’ amount of money during the pandemic to provide ‘massive support’ to the economy and workers, but that ‘there was a debate about how long we could afford this’.
He said he was speaking ‘a great deal about it’ to the chancellor and other ministers as part of his focus on tackling fuel poverty.