WIRRAL West MP Esther McVey has teamed up with former England striker Gary Linekar and wife Danielle to help tackle global poverty.

They gave their backing to the 1GOAL campaign at the Houses of Parliament yesterday.

Gary is an ambassador for the initiative, which aims to mobilise support for education for all through the power of football and fight poverty.

During the World Cup Danielle joined 1GOAL on an education trip to Khayleitsha, one of the fastest growing townships in South Africa, where opportunities for children are very limited.

The parliamentary event was held to highlight the global education crisis at this critical time.

World leaders will meet in New York next week to review progress on the UN Millennium Goals.

Two of the eight goals involve tackling poverty by ensuring that all boys and girls complete primary schooling by 2015.

With just five years to go there are still 72 million children who are being denied even a basic primary education.

Esther McVey said: "This campaign is one that I fully support, so much so that it was on this very subject I made my maiden speech, inspired by Class P at Hayfield School and Upton Convent who have signed up to the 1Goal campaign to help global poverty through education.

"When I asked class P to explain what poverty meant to them.

"They said it was about not being able to go to school to learn and make friends, about being sick but not having a doctor and about living in fear.

"Most of all, poverty is about living with no hope and dying with no one caring, that really does say why we must all get behind this campaign to be able to make a difference globally."

The Global Campaign for Education, which organises 1GOAL, states that education is not only a human right but the fastest route out of poverty and says it is vital that the UK government must stand by its existing financial commitment of £1billion per year, until 2015, to support education internationally.

Gary Lineker said: "Delivering education for the 72 million children that are currently denied access to education is an achievable dream.

"We know that the world has the resources to deliver it. Now it's time for world leaders to make it happen - for rich countries to deliver the funding needed, and for governments of developing countries to ensure that education is the top priority in their country."

David Archer, International Board Member for the Global Campaign for Education said: "This year one million pupils, in 9000 schools across the UK, joined the Global Campaign for Education's 1GOAL campaign, linked to the World Cup, which focused on getting every child in the world into school.

"Pupils and teachers understand the importance of this issue.

"The UK government has already committed to keep up overall spending on aid but we need them to become a real champion by recommitting to the target of £1 billion in aid to education each year and by calling on other world leaders to put their hands up for education at the UN Summit next week".

The Secretary of State for International Development, Andrew Mitchell MP, also attended the event.

Ronan McKenzie and Rhiannon Kruse Edwards, both 15, who won the Steve Sinnott Award to be the Young Global Education Ambassadors for 2010 were at the event to represent the one million schoolpupils that took part in the campaign this year.

Ronan and Rhiannon travelled to Ghana earlier this year with the Global Campaign for Education and PLAN International to investigate the barriers to education there.