New Report says hunger in the UK is the embodiment of state failure

Andy Burnham must Introduce Immediate relief and end Food Insecurity, say campaigners. 

The Right to Food Commission is, this week, at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool, publishing its sobering and hard-hitting findings into food insecurity and calling on PM Andy Burnham to have the courage of his convictions and end the scourge of hunger across the UK.

The Commission describes how people are feeling insecure about feeding themselves and their families, caused by low incomes and rising costs of essentials, like energy and housing as well as food, as the embodiment of the state failure that the PM recognised, and promised to tackle, when taking office.

The Commission has also calculated that a £7.8bn annual investment would provide immediate relief to vulnerable communities and families the length and breadth of the country. 

This investment would pay for universal free school meals and universal holiday food provision, and fund community kitchens and hubs, for approximately £6 billion in addition to existing and committed government expenditure. It is estimated that the recommendation to scrap the five-week wait for Universal Credit would cost around £1.8 billion.

Money could be raised by tax reforms that do not affect the fiscal rules. For example, aligning capital gains tax with income tax could alone raise £12 billion to £14 billion, while aligning taxation of dividends with income tax rates would raise a further £6bn.

Choosing or not choosing to raise these funds to tackle food insecurity is not an economic choice – it’s a political choice. 

This cost is minuscule in comparison to the huge economic impact food insecurity is having on the UK. The latest analysis from the Food Farming Countryside Commission (FFCC) put the figure at a staggering cost of £298 billion as a result of food insecurity and people not eating well.

The economic cost from food insecurity is on top of the social and human cost that sees life chances and outcomes negatively affected, inequalities deepened and the physical and mental health of millions impacted and often reliant on charity to eat. This situation affects the mental health and well-being of people in and out of work. 

As one person told the Commission: “Queuing at foodbanks is degrading, it adds to the stigma of not being able to provide decent food, clean clothes and a warm home… people who work feel embarrassed, stressed and often degraded just as much as stay at home families.”

The Commission is clear that tackling food insecurity, and ensuring not one person in our country goes hungry, necessitates new thinking and a range of radical policies backed by resources to guarantee every person in this country has the ability to access and purchase food.

These policies include a new Right to Food Law that is accountable, has a Ministry to ensure the Right to Food is implemented and is backed up with sufficient public investment. 

The Commission is also recommending that devolved nations adopt a duty of a Right to Food for all their people and that the Scottish Government revisits the provision of a Right to Food in Scottish legislation.

The publication of the Report comes on top of very recent polling conducted by Savanta for Amnesty International. The polling showed three-quarters of people in the UK have worried about the cost of food in the last year, or know someone who has. Some 85% of people across the country say it is unacceptable that some people cannot afford to feed themselves, while 70% of people say they have had to make changes to their eating and shopping habits.

The poll also found that 82% of people say there should be a legal Right to Food.

Chair of the Right to Food Commission Barrie Margetts said: “The biggest example of the broken system Prime Minister Andy Burnham has rightly diagnosed is that in the sixth wealthiest country in the world we have 14 million people not knowing where their next meal is coming from. We have thousands of children going to school hungry and families having to choose between eating and heating, or eating and paying the rent. We know that child-ill health is linked to food insecurity – 700 children a year are hospitalised due to malnutrition, rickets or scurvy. 

“A consistent message we heard across  the country was the need for universal free school meals and holiday food provision for all school-aged children. This government must act now, put in place immediate relief measures and then work towards ending food insecurity once and for all by legislating to have a Right to Food.” 

Vice Chair, Ian Byrne MP said: “I am very proud of the work this Commission has produced. The evidence is sobering that food insecurity is the embodiment of state failure and shows why we have to legislate for a Right to Food in this country.

“The level of food insecurity across the UK is a national crisis that needs an immediate, emergency response to ensure every person in this country, no matter their circumstances, can access the food they need to survive and thrive in their lives. 

“We have heard harrowing evidence about the effect food insecurity is having on children. It  is distressing, heartbreaking and utterly avoidable. We have also had it confirmed that we have an income problem, not a food problem in this country. 

“The FFCC analysis that the economic cost to the country from food insecurity and people not eating well, £298billion, is mind-blowing. It’s not that we can’t afford a Right to Food backed up with resources, it is surely that we can’t afford not to have it.

“Our Report makes a compelling case for a wholesale change of approach. Hunger is holding people back and having a huge impact on their ability to get on in their lives and on the health and well-being of children, older people and everyone in between. It is a stain on our country that needs urgently to be rectified.

“We have laid out a ten-year plan to end food insecurity once and for all. However people need help now. That’s why we have also called on the PM to provide immediate relief to people now. We have shown how this can be paid for and if this government chooses not to do so, make no mistake, this will be a political choice not an economic one. 

“I believe that we have an opportunity with Andy Burnham as PM. I know he is intent on addressing the cost of living crisis and 40 years of state failure. As far as I’m concerned there is no greater example of that failure than the levels of hunger and food insecurity in this country. 

“If he is to address state failure then he must start with tackling food insecurity. He must have the courage of his convictions and take action now.

“If the PM were to act upon the recommendations made by the commission it would help stabilise lives, improve the health of millions and their life outcomes, and save the public purse billions in the process. I look forward to working with the Prime Minister to realise this vision of fairness and decency for our country.”

Vice Chair Sarah Woolley, General Secretary of the Bakers’ Union, said: “What we have uncovered is a terrible litany of failure from successive governments. The level of hunger in this country, amongst people in and out of work, is national shame that has to be tackled urgently. Our union has conducted three cost of living, food insecurity surveys over the past few years, and year on year the findings are getting worse.

“Food workers are going hungry and unable to eat the food they produce, distribute, serve and sell. And, it is not just food workers, low pay across our country is not providing people with enough to pay for their basic needs let alone enough for a life of dignity, enjoyment and contentment. We don’t have a food problem; we have an income problem in this country and that is what we have to fix. 

“In the meantime there are immediate relief measures that this government could and must introduce. We have laid them out in the Right to Food Commission’s Report in detail and critically how these policies could be paid for. I truly hope the government is listening and takes urgent action. There is no time to lose to help the millions and millions living hand to mouth each and every day.” 

Professor Tim Jackson, Commissioner for the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission and author of  the False Economy of Big Food, said: “This report outlines a damning indictment of a culture where market power rides roughshod over the most basic of human rights. The Commission has issued a wake-up call; it’s time for joined-up policy to deliver the mandate.”   

For a Copy of the FFCC report please see here. For details of the Amnesty Right to Food Polling please see here.