Food bank use predicted to increase by as much as one and half times in final quarter of 2020 compared to the same period last year

New report on demand for Trussell Trust's food bank network calls for urgent government action to address the rise in destitution

Food bank use is predicted to be as much as one and half times more in the final quarter of 2020 compared to the same period last year, according to the Trussell Trust. 

In Lockdown, lifelines and the long haul ahead: The impact of Covid-19 on food banks in the Trussell Trust network, the Trust highlights that well before COVID-19 hit the UK, its food bank network had been seeing year-on-year increases in levels of need, with 1.9m emergency food parcels given out in 2019/2020 compared to 1.6m the previous year. The Trust highlights that the first two quarters of 2020/2021 have also seen a marked increase in need, coinciding with the coronavirus outbreak, as shown by -

• an 89 per cent increase in the number of emergency food parcels given out In April 2020 compared with the same month in 2019;
• a 107 per cent increase in the number of parcels given to children in April 2020 compared to the same period last year; and
• at least an 81 per cent increase in need moving into the second quarter of 2020/2021.

In addition, the Trust reports on economic modelling work it commissioned Heriot-Watt University to undertake on the impact of COVID-19, so that it could better understand the likely levels of future need for food banks in its network. Key findings include that there is likely to be a continued significant rise in levels of destitution and need for food parcels in the UK by the end of 2020 -

• in the final three months of the year, the modelling predicts a 61 per cent increase in need for food parcels compared to the previous year - representing an increase of 300,000; and
• in a worst-case scenario this could rise to as much as 1.3m - representing a 153 per cent increase on the previous year.

While acknowledging that many of the measures the government has taken so far will have protected large numbers of people from being swept into financial hardship and destitution, the Trust warns that the sustained increase in the number of people needing to use food banks, and the projections from its economic modelling, show that a storm lies ahead. As a result, it calls for further action by the government to -

• lock in the £20 uplift to universal credit to protect people’s incomes;
• suspend benefit debt deductions until a fairer approach to repayments can be introduced to help people hold on to more of their benefits;
• invest £250 million in local welfare assistance in England every year to make local safety nets as strong as possible; and
• rethink the ‘impending cliff edge’ of the Job Retention Scheme coming to an end.

Urging the government to use the Budget this autumn to introduce these necessary changes, Trussell Trust chief executive Emma Revie said - 

'We can either continue forward into a future with the widespread destitution predicted within our research - or we can choose to take a different path and embed the changes we need to make a lasting difference. There should be no higher priority than preserving the lifelines that have saved many of us from destitution through this pandemic. This autumn’s Budget and Comprehensive Spending Review present a crucial opportunity to ensure we have a chance of weathering the storm left in the wake of COVID-19 - we must take it.'

For more information, see We must act now to protect people from needing emergency food.