The urgent call for a Childhood Hunger Commission for London
Marina Ahmad MP is calling for a Childhood Hunger Commission for London with a new report
There are four key recommendations for tackling childhood hunger in a new report spearheaded by Labour’s Marina Ahmad.
Marina Ahmad spoke at an event today on childhood hunger at the Peckham Methodist Church, in her constituency of Lambeth and Southwark.
Marina Ahmad said at the event: “Too many Londoners are no longer choosing between heating and eating. They can no longer afford either.”
The report stated that a proportion of 41% of London children are living in poverty, the highest proportion in the UK by region.
The key recommendations of the report are that the mayor of London should form a Childhood Hunger Commission for London.
He should also lobby the Government to take immediate action to tackle the cost of living, providing immediate support to low income families.
The newly formed commission should in turn map out healthy food monitoring and support services for mothers and infants from antenatal care to the beginning of primary school.
Finally the mayor should lobby the Government to extend Universal Free School Meals to all children in early years education, primary and secondary school, inclusive of the school holidays.
Chris Price, CEO of Pecan, Catherine Hill, the project manager of four in ten, father Stephen Morrison also spoke at the event.
Chris Price stressed that the work his charity was doing was work that should not be done, by which he meant it is work that should not be needed if the system is working.
“It means the system is not working… People need to move forward with their lives.”
For this they needed the dignity of choice.
Catherine Hill continued that in the cost of living crisis: “We haven’t really named poverty enough.”
Dialogue that she felt was lacking in the political discourse on this issue.
Father Stephen Morrison stressed that he applauded the work done to tackle this issue.
And finally Chris Bevan also joined to speak through a pre-recorded video closing saying: “If we all work together we can fix this and we must fix this.”
Marina Ahmad admitted that out of national government they were limited in what they could achieve, but she still believed a lot could be achieved in London.
