How do we keep hope alive in 2025 when so many people are going hungry?

A decade ago, there was a surge of new food banks. The impact of austerity policies was being felt in communities across the country and first recruits joined what’s now become a veritable food bank volunteer army. Those first pioneers imagined their help would be needed temporarily – that the food bank phenomenon would die away after a couple of years.

Some have recently reached 10-year anniversaries, and retirement age, and have had to face the uncomfortable reality that the food bank genie clearly isn’t going back in its bottle anytime soon.  

Draconian policies driving hunger haven’t changed and more people than ever are facing deep, locked-in poverty from which there seems to be no escape. The distribution of millions upon millions of emergency food parcels haven’t stopped poverty in its tracks and have merely put a seemingly endless roll of temporary sticking plasters over the problem. What’s more, the majority of households facing severe food insecurity do not access food banks.

• Number of people turning to food banks is shocking – but it’s the tip of the hunger iceberg
• Hunger is a violation of our basic human rights – we should be outraged by UK’s food bank crisis

January has tended to be the bleakest month in the food bank calendar. January 2024 was no different and food bank teams started the year with trepidation. Debts had piled up, energy bills were insurmountable, and people on low incomes were struggling to make ends meet. In England, there was no sign that the household support gund would be extended. In fact, it wasn’t until early March that chancellor Jeremy Hunt gave this vital lifeline a six-month temporary reprieve just weeks before its expiration date.

Any hope at the start of 2024 was pinned on a possible election in the autumn. Change could well be coming. Surely, a new Labour government couldn’t ignore the plight of people pushed into destitution by a punitive social security system or the reality that so many universal credit claimants on the breadline were in work.

Warnings that frontline workers and volunteers were burnt out and exhausted might finally be heeded. And reports of diminished donations and reduced surplus food supplies could propel an incoming government to reduce the pressure on frontline charities by ensuring people had enough money in their pockets.

However, when this year’s summer election was unexpectedly announced, people facing hardship, food bank teams, and anti-poverty campaigners became cautious with their optimism. Promises to develop a child poverty strategy, end mass dependence on emergency food parcels, review universal credit, and commence section one of the equality act were welcome but the Labour manifesto hadn’t provided much hope.

The Independent Food Aid Network (IFAN) sent the new prime minister a letter on his first day in office highlighting urgency, saying: “Your new government now has a once in a generation opportunity to reverse the tide of poverty that has swept the country over the past fourteen years. Its impact has been felt across generations as people’s physical and mental health have been thwarted. We urge you to take much needed actions as swiftly as possible.”

Labour’s first months in power have seen a flurry of welcome engagement with anti-poverty organisations including the Changing Realities project on the developing child poverty strategy. The new government is listening but there seems to be a sense of urgency that’s missing. The scale of poverty is enormous and its impact both in the short and long term continues to be devastating.

This winter, bolstering food banks, redistributing surplus food, or setting up food pantries, baby banks, and multibanks risk further institutionalising a charitable response to poverty. Meanwhile, the removal of the winter fuel payment is devastating for some pensioners.

In the long term, leaving poverty to fester amongst large swathes of the population can only result in poor mental and physical health outcomes. A healthy standard of living and the establishment of a living income for all will benefit the whole of society while decreasing the burden on the NHS.

It’s vital to keep hope alive for 2025. People need to be able to do more than hang on by the fingertips. Food bank teams want to see more than a chink of light at the end of the tunnel. They want to see how their emergency services can be made redundant. The household support fund extension is a helpful drop in the ocean while the fair repayment scheme effectively prolongs indebtedness.

So as bigger plans develop, immediate actions must directly increase people’s incomes including removing the two-child limit, the benefit cap, the sanctions regime, the local housing allowance freeze, and no recourse to public funds status. Immediately increasing universal credit payments would lift people out of poverty, just as the £20 uplift did. Investment in local advice services must also be prioritised so people can access £23bn’s worth of unclaimed support.

And the publication of the child poverty strategy, the universal credit review, a plan to end mass reliance on emergency food parcels which doesn’t involve the proliferation of food pantries, and the enactment of the socio-economic duty cannot come soon enough.

Sabine Goodwin is director of the Independent Food Aid Network (IFAN).

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this? Get in touch and tell us more. This Christmas, you can make a lasting change on a vendor’s life. Buy a magazine from your local vendor in the street every week. If you can’t reach them, buy a Vendor Support Kit.