Labour says it wants to end the need for food banks. Is there any way it can succeed?

A food bank is often the last resort for people facing financial crisis. 

“We see people who have taken out payday loans or used loan sharks before us,” says Ellie Coteau, chief executive of the Welcome Centre food bank in West Yorkshire. “The most common one is borrowing money from friends and family, but often they aren’t able to help very much or for very long.  

“By the time people come to us, they might have missed payments. We’re often supporting people who have got no gas and electric and need fuel vouchers to get back up and running. By the time people turn to the food bank, their financial situation is already bad.”

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Even with it so often being the last option, millions of people turn to a food bank every year in the UK – near record levels – and they provide a lifeline service to people in desperate financial circumstances. 

In 2010, there were only 35 food banks in the Trussell network. Now, there are more than 1,400, and at least 1,000 more which are part of a separate Independent Food Aid Network (IFAN). The country has become over reliant on the tirelessness and charity of food bank workers, many of whom are volunteers.

Labour has pledged to “end the mass dependence on emergency food parcels”. And, in a step towards this goal, it has committed to a £1 billion Crisis and Resilience Fund to be distributed to local authorities from April to support people who are struggling with the cost of living.

Beatrice Orchard, head of programme for Making Social Security Work at charity Trussell, said that local crisis support is “key to the mission of ending the need for food banks, ensuring that effective discretionary support is in place when people are faced with a sudden expense or income shock”.  

She added that it needs to come alongside a “supportive social security system which means that people can afford the essentials they need day-to-day”. But from Orchard’s perspective, the Crisis and Resilience Fund is “really positive”.  

“We have campaigned for a longer term, permanent solution that is about providing effective, timely, dignified crisis support that is the responsibility of government and local government rather than the charity sector,” Orchard said. 

“Crucially, the Crisis and Resilience Fund also focuses on building financial resilience, using that moment of providing crisis support as a gateway to connecting people to advice and wider support, so that we can hopefully start to get to some of the underlying causes of why people are struggling and put support in place to make it easier for them to weather financial shocks.” 

The Crisis and Resilience Fund is guaranteed financial support for three years, whereas its predecessor the Household Support Fund was a short-term injection of cash. It was first introduced in October 2021, during the pandemic, and went through seven rounds of extensions. Every six to 12 months, it was reinstated, but there was no guarantee that the support would continue, leaving councils in limbo. 

A government spokesperson previously told the Big Issue: “We’re committed to tackling poverty and delivering more security and opportunity for families across the UK. The £1bn multi-year [Crisis and Resilience] fund will help prevent households from falling into crisis by giving local authorities the certainty they need to provide emergency financial support.”

Orchard believes that this new three-year fund is a “positive step” towards the goal of ending the need for food banks, but she adds: “It is certainly not enough in and of itself. It’s not the only answer to ending the need for food banks and delivering on the government’s manifesto commitment.” 

The Welcome Centre is an independent food bank in Huddersfield. It supports people in crisis, providing emergency food parcels that are bespoke to people’s dietary and cultural requirements and preferences. 

“Our ultimate aim is to help people transition beyond needing the food bank,” says Coteau. “But we’re a person-centred, trauma-informed service, so we do that at the individual’s pace.” 

Some people who come to the food bank – Coteau estimates around half – need help in times of short-term crisis. It might be that their car has broken down and they had to pay for it to be fixed, or they have had a relationship breakdown and need extra support, or they are in between jobs and cannot afford to wait until the next wage. These sorts of people may only come to the food bank once in a year. 

But then there are people who need the food bank more regularly – those with long-term physical or mental health conditions, those in low-paid roles, those facing benefit sanctions or deductions, and those struggling to cover the costs of housing. 

“As a mission statement, we say we’d like to close the doors of the food bank because it’s no longer needed,” Coteau says. “But in reality, I think there will always be some people who struggle and need additional support. For a lot of people, it is a cash issue.” 

IFAN has long advocated for a cash-first approach to ending the need for food banks. 

Four years ago, North Paddington Food Bank made a bold decision to stop distributing emergency food parcels and instead provide people with direct cash support. This was driven by local families who said they needed cash most, giving them control and choice over their own lives. 

It became the UK’s first and only fully cash-first food bank. It recently published an impact report which showed that food aid dependency reduced by 79% as a result of this pilot. 

More than half of families never needed to use a food bank again. 

The Crisis and Resilience Fund is a step towards a cash-first approach on a national level. Jen Coleman, of Black Country Foodbank, said she believes the fund “will ensure the upmost dignity through cash-first options when supporting people through financial hardship”.  

“By prioritising taking a cash-first approach, councils can help residents respond to challenges quickly whilst strengthening local resilience and building local economies,” Coleman adds. 

Trussell is expecting food banks to provide one emergency food parcel every 10 seconds this winter, with the UK seeing near record levels of hunger and hardship. 

“So many people in the Trussell community are trying to survive financial shock, like a relationship breakdown, a car accident, an issue with their benefits or an unexpected bill,” Orchard said. 

Nine in 10 people on low-income households on universal credit are currently going without essentials, Trussell research shows.  

“Even if they are just about coping day-to-day, that sudden expense or loss of income means things can escalate into a much more serious crisis very quickly,” Orchard added.  

“It’s about taking a more preventative approach as well as bolstering the local advice provision, using some of the funding to help ensure that the services that do exist locally are joined up and easy for people to access.”

Orchard stresses there must also be reforms to the social security system, such as ending the freeze on the local housing allowance so that housing benefit rates keep up with rising rents. 

Trussell is also campaigning alongside the Joseph Rowntree Foundation for an ‘essentials guarantee’ to be introduced to universal credit, so that it is enough for people to afford the basics they need to live. 

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimates that universal credit falls short by around £120 every month of the money people need to afford the essentials. It will still fall short by around £1,000 per year for a single person even after the 6.2% rise in April.

People are “skipping meals regularly and routinely”, Orchard says. “That’s becoming quite normalised and it is deeply concerning and not something we should allow.” 

The government has taken steps to alleviate poverty, such as through the end to the two-child limit on benefits, which is set to lift hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty almost overnight. 

“We know that there are solutions that will make a difference,” Orchard said. “It’s still the case that food banks are extremely busy, and people are still finding it extremely difficult. But we can hold onto some optimism that there are changes that will make a difference.”

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