Feeding Britain MPs report on progress towards ending hunger six months on

Six months ago, the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Hunger in the United Kingdom published a report, Feeding Britain, which examined the causes of sky-rocketed food bank use. The report made 77 recommendations to address issues related to gaps in Britain’s safety net; the high cost of being poor and a dysfunctional food system.

Yesterday, the core group of MPs involved in implementing the recommendations of Feeding Britain held a meeting in London to give an update on progress to date and solicit input on priorities for the work moving forward.  The MPs highlighted the work of many partners, including:

• The Department for Work and Pensions, the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the Financial Conduct Authority, and the utilities regulators for implementing some key recommendations in Feeding Britain.
• Some supermarkets, energy companies and charities have also made improvements to ease some of the pressure on poorer households’ budgets.
• Local partnerships in Birkenhead, Salisbury, South Shields and Truro are working to ensure people seeking food aid receive welfare advice, implementing holiday hunger programmes, improving free school meal uptake, and other innovations to address hunger locally.

Altogether, more than a third of the recommendations set out in Feeding Britain have been implemented in the first six months. More detail is available in the report Feeding Britain - Six Months On.

However Sustain believes much more work remains to be done. Hannah Laurison, Sustain, explained, 'We need to improve the administration of benefits, improve wages at the bottom end of the labour market, and ensure that surplus food is redistributed to charities. In addition we need to look to how we can tackle food poverty beyond the food bank and we are encouraging people to sign the Sustainable Food Cities declaration to encourage more action at a local and national level.'

At the conclusion of the meeting, it was agreed that three working groups would carry the work forward and report back to Feeding Britain at the next meeting. In addition, the members of Feeding Britain ask that individuals and organisations working on the frontline of the fight against hunger share information on the development and progression of local efforts with the APPG Secretary Andrew Forsey on Andrew.forsey[at]parliament.uk.

Sustain works to alleviate food poverty across the UK.