Manchester United star Marcus Rashford has hit back at a Tory MP after a tweet about child poverty.
Kevin Hollinrake, who represents Thirsk and Malton, said it is the responsibility of parents and not the government to feed children.
The Yorkshire MP, who made the comment after praising Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme, tweeted: ‘Where they can, it’s a parents job to feed their children.’
Footballer Rashford, 22, who is spearheading a task force to combat child poverty, rebuked the married father-of-four.
On his Twitter account he responded: ‘I would urge you to talk to families before tweeting. To this day I haven’t met one parent who hasn’t wanted or felt the responsibility to feed their children…’
Footballer Rashford, 22, who is spearheading a task force to combat child poverty, rebuked the married father-of-four
The England star was successful in campaigning for free school meal vouchers to be provided to pupils over the summer period
The tweet from the Tory MP was strongly criticised by other social media users, with many supporting the Manchester United star’s comments, and some even calling for him to enter politics after his footballing career has ended.
Emma Cantrell, CEO of First Days Children’s Charity, tweeted: ‘It’s this type of ignorance that we encounter every day at First Days. We have also not come across a single parent who isn’t desperate to provide everything their children need – no one, NO ONE, is proud of having charity support. But it is so needed, so sadly.’
Kevin Hollinrake, who represents Thirsk and Malton, said it is the responsibility of parents and not the government to feed children
Comedian Matt Forde said: ‘You’ve got to go into politics after football.’
Twitter user Daniel Hopkins said: ‘You’re right Marcus. People don’t chose to not feed their kids. Things change in life and people struggle and when you have to choose between paying your Bill’s, or putting food on the table, thats wrong. Especially in one of the most richest countries in the world.
And Stef Williams said: ‘Breaks my heart that people believe this. I didn’t eat for days on end so my daughter could.
‘I researched what gave the highest vitamin intake in the cheapest possible way. Tinned spaghetti hoops, 20 years ago. She ate them for most meals. Thank you for highlighting the issue.’
Not everyone agreed with Rashford’s response to the Tory MP this afternoon.
A Twitter user called Brandon said: ‘Unfortunately many children are neglected by their parents Marcus. it’s not uncommon for people to have issues and put other things before their kids.’
The England star was successful in campaigning for free school meal vouchers to be provided to pupils over the summer period.
He had spoken about his own experience of using a food voucher scheme as a child and was praised after pressing the Government into making a U-turn on the issue.
Mr Hollinrake was responding to another Twittter user after commenting on the success of the Eat Out to Help Out scheme
A number of Twitter users supported the comments by the Manchester United star today
Rashford, 22, has now teamed up with the food industry to shed light on the issue of child food poverty in the UK.
Along with Aldi, Asda, Co-op, Deliveroo, FareShare, Food Foundation, Iceland, Kellogg’s, Lidl, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose, he has formed the ‘Child Food Poverty Task Force’.
Over the next six weeks, the task force members will dedicate their platforms to sharing stories of those most affected by child food insecurity in the UK.
Speaking on BBC Breakfast on Tuesday morning last week, Rashford said: ‘We pretty much knew straight away that we’d found a short-term solution (with the free school meals vouchers).
‘That wasn’t going to work in the long-run. We had to think about how’s the best way to do it so that these families can eat long-term and not have any issues.
Not all Twitter users agreed with Rashford’s comments on Twitter this afternoon
‘It took a bit of thinking, then we wanted to do it the best way that we could so we want to introduce the correct people into our group and see if using them can hopefully push it even more.’
Rashford said the task force is endorsing three national food strategy policy recommendations.
In a letter to MPs, Rashford said the objective is to ‘see sufficient funds from the Chancellor’s Budget and Spending Review allocated to implementing these without delay’.
The first one is the expansion of free school meals to every child from a household on Universal Credit or equivalent, reaching an additional 1.5million kids aged between seven and 16.
The second one is the expansion of holiday provision (food and activities) to support all children on free school meals, reaching an additional 1.1million children.
And the third one is 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.
In his letter, Rashford wrote: ‘When we pause, listen and reflect on what the future of our next generation could potentially look like, it’s easy to see that if we don’t take action quickly, the issue of child food poverty will have devastating effects on the stability of our country.
‘These children are the future – our next generation of NHS workers, police officers, footballers and politicians.’
Rashford recalls his own experience, writing: ‘I remember the sound of my mum crying herself to sleep to this day, having worked a 14-hour shift, unsure how she was going to make ends meet.’