Food bank use soars as families face 'crisis', study reveals

The rising toll of hunger has been revealed in a new report by a charity which shows the number of packages handed out at food banks to families in 'crisis' has soared by more than 73,600.
Karen Burgon (centre) with fellow volunteers.Karen Burgon (centre) with fellow volunteers.
Karen Burgon (centre) with fellow volunteers.

The Trussell Trust has today recommended that the six-week wait people claiming benefits face is reduced in its report Early Warnings: Universal Credit and Foodbanks, as it showed the number of three-day emergency supplies being handed out leapt from 1,109,309 in 2015/16 to 1,182,954 in the last year.

Low income, benefit delays and benefit changes are the top three reasons people are referred to use the services, according to the study.

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Adrian Curtis, the trust’s foodbank network director, said that people are facing a “short-term crisis” between choosing to pay for different necessities, which can lead them to using the services.

“Increasingly people are just struggling,” he said.

“Their household income isn’t enough to sustain paying bills and putting food on the table.”

Mr Curtis added: “We do see people who come into food banks who are in work struggling on low pay or insecure forms of payment where their salary fluctuates.”

This comes as a cross-party panel of MPs and peers today warned that up to three million children risk going hungry during the school holidays.

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The all-party parliamentary group on hunger said the Government should use £100,000 raised from the tax on sugary drinks to help councils support schemes aimed at feeding hungry children when school canteens are shut.

Karen Burgon, project director for Leeds North and West Foodbank, which has seven distribution centres in the city, said: “Quite often the children don’t even know that their parents are coming.

“They [parents] will be trying to get back before their children come back from school.”

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is still rolling out Universal Credit, which is aimed at simplifying the benefits system into one type of payment.

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But the first monthly payment can take around six weeks to arrive.

The Trussell Trust’s report said that food banks in areas of full Universal Credit rollout to single people, couples and families have seen a 16.85 per cent average increase in referrals for emergency food – more than double the national average of 6.64 per cent.

In Yorkshire and the Humber 69,200 supplies were given out – 24,500 to children – compared to compared to 65,059 in 2015/16.

However nationally, on average people needed two food bank referrals in the last year.

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A DWP spokesman said: “The reasons for food bank use are complex, so it’s misleading to link them to any one issue. Employment is the best route out of poverty, and there are now record numbers of people in work.

“Under Universal Credit people are moving into work faster and staying in work longer than under the old system.”