October 15th, 2020: Today Louis Tomlinson retweeted a Tweet posted by Manchester United football player Marcus Rashford MBE urging UK resident to sign a petition to end child food poverty in the UK.

The petition reads: “End child food poverty – no child should be going hungry- Government should support vulnerable children & #endchildfoodpoverty by implementing 3 recommendations from the National Food Strategy to expand access to Free School Meals, provide meals & activities during holidays to stop holiday hunger & increase the value of and expand the Healthy Start scheme”.

The covid-19 pandemic has caused a severe economic crises across the globe, with as many as 32% of the families in the UK experiencing loss of income. This has caused 14% and 10% of children and adults respectively experiencing food insecurity in the last 6 months. With the winter coming it is estimated that there will be as much as 61% increase in the use of food banks.

Marcus Rashford MBE has decided to call for the government to make provisions so that at least children are ensured warm meals. The petition is asking the government to:

“-Expand free school meals to all under-16s where a parent or guardian is in receipt of Universal Credit or equivalent benefit 
– Provide meals & activities during all holidays 
– Increase the value of Healthy Start vouchers to at least £4.25 per week, and expand the scheme.“

Marcus Rashford MBE and Louis Tomlinson

Louis has been particularly sensitive to the needs of others during this pandemic. Not only has he checked on his fans multiple times by posting messages on Twitter, but he has also publicly supported a newly founded non-profit that works to provide free meals to people and families that need support (article).

By RTing the petition link, Louis gave a lot of exposure to this cause helping raise signatures. Indeed in less than a day more than 100,000 people signed the petition. Normally the UK Government responds to all petitions that raise more than 10,000 signatures, but the Parliament actually considers for debate any petition that raises more than 100,000. Given that the petition has now raised 167,402 signatures, it has a good chance of being discussed!