Food banks are a lifeline – but not the solution. There are better ways to tackle poverty in 2025

Coming into 2024, Trussell reported a record high number of emergency food parcels had been distributed to people facing hunger across the UK. Between April 2023 and March 2024, food banks in Trussell’s community distributed an eye-watering 3.1 million emergency food parcels. Devastatingly, this was not sudden or unexpected – in fact, the number has almost doubled over the last five years, as we are seeing more and more people struggling to afford the essentials.

Over the year, the economy began to slowly return to a more normal state, with inflation falling to below 2% in September, but food bank need stayed close to these record levels. This is deeply worrying, suggesting that the economy’s ‘new normal’ is baking in unprecedently high levels of hunger and hardship, when there is nothing normal about people not having enough money to live on.

A seismic political shift in the middle of the year saw Labour come into government, having committed to end the need for emergency food in its manifesto. In its first few months the new government took positive first steps in the King’s Speech and budget to help people facing hunger and hardship. But big decisions about reforms to universal credit and disability benefits were deferred to 2025, and there was a studied silence about the urgent need to invest in social security to protect people from hunger and hardship.

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To move forward the government needs to set out a clear plan for how it plans to end the need for emergency food in the UK. Reforms to workers’ and renters’ rights, employment support, public services and community infrastructure are all important parts of this.

But investment in social security must be at the heart of the plan. There is no route to reversing the tide of hunger and hardship, or significantly reducing the numbers of people being forced to turn to a food bank without this crucial action. In fact, the government risks seeing hardship worsen on its watch unless it improves the design and adequacy of social security.

Trussell’s recent research found that at least 9.3m people are facing hunger and hardship in the UK, a third of whom are children. This represents an increase in the number of people facing hunger and hardship of more than a third compared to 20 years ago.

Our projections found that without urgent action from the UK government, these levels of hunger and hardship will continue to increase, with a further 425,000 people expected to be trapped in this situation in a few years’ time.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. There are solutions that can end hunger in the UK, but political will is needed to deliver them.

Our research found that introducing an ‘essentials guarantee’ into universal credit would lift millions of people out of hunger and hardship in the UK. This policy would ensure everyone’s payments from social security would at least cover their essentials, like food, bills and toiletries.

As a first move towards this, Trussell is calling for the UK government to introduce a protected minimum floor into universal credit, which would be a low-cost but concrete step towards ensuring our social security system protects people from going without the essentials.  This would ensure, for the first time, that there would be a real safety net below which no one could fall.

In November 2024, Trussell released its newest figures for the number of people turning to food banks across the UK. It found that 1.42m emergency food parcels were distributed in the last six months, a 69% increase from 2019 and close to the record levels seen the previous year.

This should not be the case in one of the richest countries in the world. Food banks are a lifeline, but they are not the solution. It is heartbreaking to see a generation of children growing up thinking that it is normal to see a food bank in every town. We must tackle the root causes of poverty in this country to ensure no one needs to turn to a food bank to get by.

2025 is the year where we need to see a clear plan from the UK government on its commitment to end emergency food, and a commitment to invest in social security over the course of the parliament.

Food banks can’t fill gaps this big alone. We refuse to stand by while so many are pushed to the brink, without enough money to live on. We stand ready to work with the government on a long-term plan to significantly reduce the need for food banks by the end of this parliament, and eventually end it for good.

Helen Barnard is Trussell’s director of policy, research and impact.

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