Independent Food Aid Network reports a more than 60 per cent increase in the number of emergency food parcels distributed by independent food banks

Calling for significant changes, Network says current social security system 'creates rather than prevents poverty'

The Independent Food Aid Network (IFAN) has reported a more than 60 per cent increase in the number of emergency food parcels distributed by independent food banks.

Setting out the findings of an analysis of data contributed by 134 independent food banks, IFAN highlights that -

• there was a 62 per cent increase in emergency food parcel distribution in October 2020 as compared to October 2019;
• the 134 food banks surveyed distributed a total of 426,958 emergency food parcels between February and October 2020, up from 226,605 in the same period last year, representing a rise of 88 per cent; and
• from February to April 2020, independent food bank use rose by 120 per cent.

Arguing that the provision of emergency food parcels 'will not solve poverty', IFAN calls on the government to make significant changes to the social security system to ensure that everyone is able to afford to buy food, including -

• making the £20 uplift to universal credit permanent and extending it to legacy benefits;
• removing the benefit cap;
• ending the five-week wait for a first universal credit payment by removing the loan element of advance payments;
• ending the two-child limit;
• ending the sanctions system; and
• permanently suspending the no recourse to public funds requirement.

Commenting on the demands, Co-Chair IFAN’s Board of Trustees Dr Maddy Power said -

'The impacts of coronavirus (COVID-19) have been profoundly unequal and nowhere has this been more apparent than in the sharp increases in poverty and hunger caused by the economic fallout of the pandemic. No one should have to use a food bank but at present the welfare system creates rather than prevents poverty. Without significant government action to improve incomes we will become a country in which millions of people are permanently reliant on an already stretched charitable food system for survival.'

For more information, see Latest independent food bank figures from the Independent Food Aid Network from the IFAN website.