Marcus Rashford has launched a petition calling on the government to allocate their budget to further tackle child hunger in the United Kingdom.

The 22-year-old, as part of the #endchildfoodpoverty campaign supported by the Child Food Poverty Task Force Rashford set up, has put forward three National Food Strategy recommendations.

• Expansion of free school meals to every child from a household on Universal Credit or equivalent, reaching an additional 1.5m children aged between seven and 16
• Expansion of holiday provision (food and activities) to support all children on free school meals, reaching an additional 1.1m children
• Increasing the value of the Healthy Start vouchers to £4.25 per week (from £3.10) and expanding into all those on Universal Credit or equivalent, reaching an additional 290,000 pregnant women and children under the age of four.

Nearly a million more children, on top of the 1.4 million who have been claiming free school lunches during the Covid-19 pandemic, are estimated to have registered for free school meals in the last month.

The petition can be signed here.