A record 1.6m emergency food parcels were given out by the Trussell Trust food bank network last year – more than 500,000 of them to children – as benefit cuts, universal credit delays, and rising poverty fuelled the busiest year in the charity’s history.
The trust demanded urgent changes to the UK benefit system – including major reforms to universal credit – as it recorded a year-on-year 19% surge in the number of food bags it gave out, the biggest annual increase for five years.
Pointing to data showing that its emergency food supplies had grown for five consecutive years – a 73% increase overall – the charity warned that food banks could not keep expanding indefinitely to cover for a failing social security system.
The Trussell Trust’s chief executive, Emma Revie, said it was unacceptable that people had to use food banks in the first place, and the state should not rely on them to fix its shortcomings. “We do not want to be a part of the welfare state, we can’t be a part of the system.”
The charity also challenged recent claims by the work and pensions secretary, Amber Rudd, that long waits for universal credit payments were “absolutely not” causing claimants to use food banks. It called for the five-week wait for a first payment to be scrapped, and for benefits to be uprated in line with the cost of living.
The trust’s figures show that a fifth of all referrals to food banks last year were linked to delays in receiving benefits, and almost half of these were related to universal credit. Many claimants do not have the savings to cope with over a month without income, putting them in rent arrears.
Aside from universal credit, the trust reported that a third of referrals to food banks last year were as a result of “low income” – meaning those referred were unable to meet the cost of living, the majority as a result of inadequate benefits income. Most working-age benefits have been frozen since 2016.
“What we are seeing year-upon-year is more and more people struggling to eat because they simply cannot afford food. This is not right,” said Revie.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) challenged the trust’s claim that universal credit was driving food bank use, although Rudd had seemingly admitted the two were linked earlier this year. It argues that advance loans available to claimants when they claim universal credit mean no one should go hungry for lack of cash.
However, Trussell says that having to repay a chunk of the advance each month leaves many claimants unable to meet living costs for long periods, and that this continues to drive them to food banks.
A common critique of food bank figures is that an increase in food bank supplies reflect expanding capacity rather than demand. However, there was a net increase of just three Trussell food banks in 2018-19, running 1,249 outlets across the network.
Sabine Goodwin, of the Independent Food Aid Network, which estimates there are at least 800 non-Trussell food banks operating in the UK, said the latest figures told only half the story: “These shocking statistics from the Trussell Trust must result in drastic changes that will see the repair of a broken benefits system and the payment of adequate wages.”
Margaret Greenwood, the shadow work and pensions secretary, said: “The sharp rise in food bank use over the last year is shocking, and the need for emergency food parcels in one of the richest countries of the world is shameful. Nobody in our society should be forced to turn to food banks to survive.
“Despite ministers’ attempts to explain away food bank use, the Trussell Trust is very clear that cuts to social security and the five-week wait for universal credit payments are key reasons for the rise.”
Campbell Robb, chief executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said: “When the use of food banks reaches a record high we are beyond the language of warning signs and wake-up calls. Unless we take bold action to solve poverty we risk undermining what we stand for as a country.”