![]() We absolutely believe it is possible to end the need for food banks in the UK.” I would like to see demand fall over the next five. She added: “The Trussell Trust has grown 74% over the past five years. We do, and we will stay as long as we have to, but it is a sticking plaster,” said Revie. “People think food banks will always step in. It has seen its network grow from about 50 to around 1,400 over the past decade, largely in response to austerity cuts to the social security system, but it insists it now wants to reverse that expansion. Reducing the need for food banks is at the heart of Trussell Trust’s new five-year strategy Hunger Free Future. It was “astonishing they kept going” she said, but it was not sustainable or desirable that they shoulder this burden in the long term. She praised food banks that had “moved heaven and earth” to cope with the extra demand from struggling families during the pandemic, despite food shortages early on. ![]() The trust, in alliance with other anti-poverty campaigners, called for renewed investment in local welfare schemes and more generous national social security benefits, including the retention of the temporary £20 a week uplift to universal credit issued in April. We need to say as a society ‘we are not going to allow our citizens to fall so far that they need a food bank.’” “Locking in the £20 uplift to universal credit and tax credits, for example, would significantly reduce the numbers coming to food banks in the next year. ![]() More needed to be done by the state to prevent people becoming destitute in the first place, she said. Revie paid tribute to the “unbelievable compassion” of the British public who donated to food banks during the pandemic and supported footballer Marcus Rashford’s campaign to provide school holiday food support for struggling families.īut she warned there was a danger that food banks, which could never be a comprehensive response to hunger, were “teetering on the brink” of being normalised in the UK as a response to poverty. It said that despite record-breaking demand for help at its 1,400 food bank outlets, this was likely to be just the “tip of the iceberg” as many more people would have been helped by other community and welfare charities.
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