Zayn Malik Urges UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak To Provide Free School Meals To Poor Children!

Zayn Malik has written an open letter to the United Kingdom’s new Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, urging that the government provide free school lunches to all poor children.

Malik, who was recently named ambassador for the Food Foundation, is urging the prime minister to use his November budget to raise the threshold to have included young people from universal credit families.

He is encouraging people in the UK to write to their MPs about the issue as part of this campaign. In his touching letter, the former One Direction member asks the Prime Minister to “act in good conscience” and grant cash for free school lunches for low-income children before the Nov. 17 budget deadline.

The former One Direction singer posted a picture of his signed letter on Instagram, in which he underlined the problems that many families in the UK are currently facing as living costs rise.

Malik, 29, who grew up in Bradford, said the problem is personal to him because he, too, “relied on Free School Meals.”

“I know what that guilt feels like; I have seen it firsthand, and I have also experienced the stigma associated with food insecurity,” the Night Changes singer wrote in his letter.

I hope that this letter will allow us to collectively ensure that no child in England will ever experience this hunger and stigma again.

“That this would be a huge comfort for financially strapped parents to know there  children are getting a good lunch at school,” he wrote in his letter.

Parents should not have to choose between buying food, turning on the heat, and going into debt, he said.

The UK government provides free school meals to children who are or whose parents are receiving income support or other forms of government assistance. A cost-of-living problem has hit the United Kingdom hard, sparking protests. The Bank of England recently issued its largest rate hike in 33 years, which is expected to deepen the situation and place more strain on households attempting to repay previous loans.

Malik launched his solo career after leaving One Direction in 2015, a year before the boy band announced an indefinite hiatus.

He and his ex-partner, US model Gigi Hadid, have a two-year-old daughter named Khai.