Food bank use tops million mark over the past year

Recorded food bank use in the UK rose to record levels over in the past 12 months, challenging claims that the dividends of Britain’s economic recovery are being equally shared.

The latest figures from the Trussell Trust show a 19% year-on-year increase in food bank use, demonstrating that hunger and poverty continue to affect large numbers of people, including rising numbers of low-paid workers.

The trust’s 445 food banks distributed enough emergency food to feed almost 1.1 million people for three days in 2014-15 – up from 913,000 the previous year.

Back in 2009-10, before the Liberal Democrat-Conservative coalition took power, 41,000 people were given three days’ food by the 56 food banks established at that time by the then little-known charity.

The figures indicate the scale of help given by Trussell food banks, but do not show the total number of their “unique users”, as an estimated half of its food bank clients were referred more than once. On average people needed two food bank vouchers in a year, suggesting that more than half a million different people received help from Trussell.

Chris Mould, the Trussell Trust chairman, said the figures showed many people were experiencing “catastrophic” problems as a result of low incomes, despite signs of a wider economic recovery. He said: “These needs have not diminished in the last 12 months.”

Experts warned that the figures were the “tip of the iceberg” of food poverty in the UK, while doctors said the inability of families to buy enough food had become a public health issue.

Labour, which has unveiled a five-point plan to tackle the rising numbers of people using food banks, seized on the data as a sign of coalition incompetence.

The shadow work and pensions secretary, Rachel Reeves, said: “David Cameron’s failure to tackle low pay, the bedroom tax and delays in benefit payments have led to more than a million people depending on emergency food aid.”

A spokesman for the Conservative party said: “Increased use of food banks is partially because the last Labour government didn’t let jobcentres direct people to them when they were in need of food. But of course we acknowledge there is still more to do – one family failing to make ends meet each month is a family too many.”

The Trussell Trust figures show the biggest proportion, 44%, of food bank referrals last year – marginally lower than the previous year – were triggered by people pitched into crisis because their benefit payments had been delayed, or stopped altogether as a result of the strict jobcentre sanctions regime.

More than a fifth, 22%, of food bank users were referred because of low income – meaning they were unable to afford food due to a relatively small financial crisis such as a boiler breaking down or having to buy a school uniform.

This group includes people in low-paid, zero-hours or part-time work who were forced to turn to food banks.

Susan, a qualified teacher and mother of two, said: “I work part time as a teacher and my husband has an insecure agency contract. There are times when he doesn’t get enough hours of work, and we really struggle to afford food and pay the bills. The food bank meant we could put food on the table.”

Academic experts said the Trussell Trust figures did not capture the scale of emergency food aid provided by hundreds of other charities, churches and community groups.

Hannah Lambie-Mumford, a research fellow at the University of Sheffield and a food bank specialist, said the data was “an urgent call to policymakers to address the root cause of food poverty in the UK”.

She told the Guardian: “As data is not collected on the numbers of people experiencing food poverty, it is impossible for us to draw any conclusions about wider experiences from these statistics; that said, they are very likely to represent just the tip of the iceberg – with many more people experiencing food poverty than reflected in these numbers.”

Dr John Middleton, the vice-president of the Faculty of Public Health, said: “Poverty is already creating massive health issues for people today, and if we do not tackle the root causes of food poverty now, we will see it affecting future generations too.”

Rising food bank use caused embarrassment for the coalition, which was regularly forced to deny that the phenomenon was linked to its welfare reforms. David Cameron recently struggled under questioning on food banks by Jeremy Paxman in a set-piece TV interview.