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Foodbank use skyrockets amid global pandemic

Trussell Trust reports 81% increase in emergency parcels

STAGGERING numbers of people are being forced into food poverty with charities reporting hikes in foodbank use of up to 80 per cent since the Covid-19 outbreak. 

The skyrocketing need sparked by the pandemic and lockdown has prompted a coalition of charities to call for emergency measures to prevent people “being swept into destitution.”  

One of the charities, the Trussell Trust, said today that in the last two weeks of March its foodbanks had given out 81 per cent more emergency food parcels than the same period the previous year. 

It said the increase was mostly the result of people struggling with the amount of income they receive from work or benefits. 

The Independent Food Aid Network (IFAN) also reported record high need, giving out 59 per cent more parcels from February to March, 17 times higher than this time last year. 

The coalition, which also includes the Children’s Society, Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), StepChange and Turn2us is urging the government to plug the gaping holes in its support schemes for people to get through the crisis. 

They want ministers to do this by increasing benefit payments, scrapping the five-week wait for universal credit and lifting the benefit cap. 

Trussell Trust chief executive Emma Revie said: “Like a tidal wave gathering pace, an economic crisis is sweeping towards us – but we don’t all have lifeboats. 

“It’s not right that this has meant some of us don’t have enough money for essentials and are being pushed to foodbanks.”

Sabine Goodwin, of IFAN, said that the solution was not in handing out more emergency parcels “but in providing sufficient income to the huge numbers of people impacted by this crisis.”

The Trussell Trust’s figures also show that families with children are particularly hard hit by the crisis. Over the two-week period in March the number of parcels given out to children increased by 122 per cent. 

This is likely to have been driven in part by delays to free school meal vouchers to families in need. 

Schools have repeatedly raised concerns about problems accessing the vouchers which have resulted in families waiting weeks to receive them.  

Labour’s shadow minister for children and early years Tulip Siddiq said: “Free school meals are not something that children can afford to wait a few weeks for.

“The school meal is often the only proper meal a child has all day.

“The government needs to fix problems with the vouchers and give schools more support to ensure that children are not left hungry.”

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