Marcus Rashford: Ending child poverty is a bigger trophy than any in football
Tuesday June 16 2020, The Times
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...-bigger-trophy-than-any-in-football-vz7z3brpp
It can be funny where your career takes you sometimes. If someone had said ten years ago that I would one day be writing for
The Times I would have laughed, and yet here I am on Monday evening opening this with a question that has been playing on my mind all day: have I done enough?
I barely slept on Sunday night, nervous and worried about the delivery of my
open letter, not because of the stance I was taking — that was never in doubt — but because I knew the impact a U-turn decision could have on families just like mine: low-income families who rarely have a voice.
People often ask me how it felt to score the
deciding penalty against PSG to knock them out of the Champions League last season, my answer is always the same: did we go on to win the tournament? I have been overwhelmed by the support I’ve received over the last 24 hours, from MPs and members of the public, but the feeling I have is exactly the same as when we got knocked out of the Champions League against Barcelona in the next round: what did we achieve if we didn’t get the result we needed? If we didn’t lift the Champions League trophy?
Today I focus on a trophy that stands for something much bigger than football. A U-turn on the decision to stop the free food voucher scheme continuing over the summer holidays could help us reach the next round but we still have a very long way to go as a country to eventually lift the trophy. In this case, the trophy is combating child poverty.
I don’t claim to have the education of an MP in parliament, but I do have a social education. I am clued up on the difference a U-turn decision would make on the 1.3 million vulnerable children across the UK who are registered for free school meals because ten years ago I was one of them.
I know what it feels like to be hungry. I’m well aware that at times my friends only invited me to eat at their houses for their parents’ reassurance that I was eating that evening. That was my community, the community that made the Marcus Rashford you see before you today asking for your help: an England international footballer. As I passed through Manchester city centre on the bus as a child and witnessed homelessness on every street corner, I swore that if one day I got in a position to help those people most in need then that is what I would do.
I recognise that I have a valuable platform that allows my voice to be heard and I’m asking you to listen to the stories of these vulnerable families. People are hurting and we continue to ignore their cries for help. Of the 1.3 million children registered for free school meals, a quarter of them have not received any help to date during the lockdown — a forgotten generation.
When you next wake up and run your shower, take a second to think about parents who have had their water turned off during lockdown. When you turn on the kettle to make a cup of tea or coffee, think of those parents who have had to default on electricity bill payments just to make ends meet, having lost their jobs during the pandemic.
And when you head to the fridge to grab the milk, stop and recognise that parents of at least 200,000 children across the country are waking up to empty shelves and the innocent question “why?”. Today nine out of thirty children in any given classroom are asking why. Why does their future not matter?
This is the devastating reality of child poverty in England in 2020. This is a pandemic that will last generations if we don’t change our thinking now.
We should consider that these pandemics we are living through, Covid-19 and child poverty, will have huge effects on the long-term mental stability of both parents and children, and their reintegration into society. A society which, in their eyes, is failing them.
My mum would go days without sleeping, worrying about how she would cover the next round of bills, worried that I could get in trouble, mixing with the wrong crowds, if she couldn’t keep her eyes on me while working every hour of the day. Even at seven or eight years old I recognised her worry, but I also recognised that she was trying her best. I’ve said it once and I will say it again: this system was not built for families like mine to succeed, no matter how hard we are working.
I’ve heard the term “ordinarily” used often over the past 24 hours. I think we can all agree that these are far from ordinary times, so our approach should be anything but ordinary to protect our vulnerable children.
When it comes to pulling the national team shirt on we put any rivalry aside — we are England and we stand united. Today I am asking that all MPs put their rivalries aside and stand in solidarity on an issue that could prove detrimental to the stability of families across the country for generations to come. Help us break the cycle of hardship.
Please, do the right thing and extend the free food voucher scheme throughout the school summer holidays. Give our vulnerable families just one less thing to worry about.
Marcus Rashford is a footballer for Manchester United and England