Thousands more children relying on foodbanks during lockdown, charities warn

Anti-poverty charity The Trussell Trust has recorded an 81 per cent increase in the number of people relying on support from 303 food banks in the charity’s network during the last two weeks of March compared with the same period last year.

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The charity has raised particular concerns over the number of children facing poverty after the number of food parcels handed out to under-18s surged by 112 per cent in the same time period compared with 12 months previously.

Mark Russell, chief executive of The Children’s Society, said the figures were a “stark indication of just how many more families are facing financial difficulties as a result of the coronavirus”.

“Our research found one in seven councils are no longer providing crisis support, yet we have learned more and more people are turning to their local authorities for help,” said Russell.

The findings also showed that some 59 per cent of the increase in emergency food distributed from food banks is due to people reporting a fall in income from work or benefits, the charity said.

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A further 12 per cent is because of sickness, it added.

The Independent Food Aid Network (IFAN) has also reported a record level of need. The charity says it supported 17 times the number of families between February and March this year, compared with the same time period in 2019.

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The shock findings has prompted a coalition of charities to write to Chancellor Rishi Sunak to lay out plans for a Coronavirus Emergency Income Support Scheme, warning they “cannot continue to pick up the pieces” of the economic impact of the crisis.

The scheme would see the government introduce measures including:

• Lifting the benefit cap to ensure that the support scheme benefits everyone

• Raising statutory sick pay and extending coverage of this scheme to lower paid groups

• Raising the local housing allowance to cover median rents, so that increased income is not swallowed up by high rent costs in many parts of the country
  

• Carrying out a rapid assessment of the extent to which the hardship fund for local authorities in England is enabling councils to provide crisis grants to vulnerable individuals and households

• Suspending the two-child limit to ensure families can access the level of support they need to stay afloat
  

• Increasing benefits that go to families to help with the costs of raising children, for example through child benefit, the child element of Universal Credit, and child tax credit
  

• Suspending ‘no recourse to public funds’ conditions for people in serious financial hardship or risk of homelessness.

Emma Revie, chief executive of the Trussell Trust, said: “It’s not right that this has meant some of us don’t have enough money for essentials and are being pushed to food banks. Now is the time to build on the foundations our government has laid. We need emergency measures to ensure people can make ends meet during this crisis. We have the power to come together as a country and make sure support is there to stop any of us being swept into poverty during this emergency.”

Alison Garnham, chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group said “targeted support is needed to shield children from poverty”.

She added: “We all want a safety net that can bring families through tough times but today’s figures show we no longer have that in the UK. Instead when a crisis strikes, we have more and more children in food banks. That isn’t right. 

“Raising the level of all benefits for children would be the most effective way of getting support to families quickly. It’s our moral responsibility to make that investment – because no child should be reliant on charitable food packages.”