The writer is director of policy, research and impact at the Trussell Trust, a charity that supports food banks and campaigns to end the need for them across the UK
If you were to imagine a cost of living crisis that inflicts maximum damage on those least able to bear it, it would look very much like the current economic situation in the UK.
Why? First, because today’s crisis has been driven primarily by sharp rises in food and energy prices, costs that account for a far larger proportion of the budgets of people on low incomes than those who are better off. Recently, the Office for National Statistics found that inflation for low-income households was 10.1 per cent, while for high-income households it was only 8.7 per cent.
The real-life impacts of this imbalance are especially devastating because prices have risen most in the areas of expenditure where cutting back causes real hardship — people cannot afford to eat, they sit in the cold and dark and are scared to turn on the washing machine or oven. The latest inflation figures from this week showed that food inflation remains high, even as other cost pressures start to ease. There are particularly eye-watering rises in the cost of staples, which are the building blocks of affordable meals — milk is up by 33 per cent, potatoes and bread by 28 per cent, eggs by 37 per cent.
In the Trussell Trust’s research with people on universal credit, one parent described their daily struggles to keep her family fed and clean. They told the charity: “The children are fed but my husband and I rarely are. I’ve not paid my water bill but by the end of the month I’m going to have to stop paying another bill as food prices are rising fast.” The family would worry about gas and electricity, which were on key meters, running out: “Then that’s it until Monday, even with no lights on and tech kept to a minimum. I’m handwashing everything outside in buckets to save money.”
The damage this current crisis is inflicting is exacerbated because it comes hot on the heels of disproportionate impacts of the pandemic on people who were already struggling. Workers in poverty bore the brunt of Covid-related job losses and falls in income. During the pandemic, people on high incomes tended to maintain their salaries and even build up savings, while people on low incomes were forced to take on more debt to cover costs that rose as their incomes fell.
The vulnerability of these individuals to first the pandemic and then the cost of living crisis was even greater because of the longer-term trend of rising levels of deep poverty. Research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that between 2017 and 2019, destitution in the UK rose by 54 per cent.
Amid all of this, support is being stretched beyond breaking point. Last August, NHS bosses wrote to the chancellor warning that the cost of living crisis was about to become an NHS crisis, because of the impact of poverty on people’s health. This additional pressure on an already strained health service is likely to have grown even further over the past year.
One shocking culmination of all this was the revelation that food banks in the Trussell Trust network had provided almost 3mn parcels in the past year, with a million of these for children. This was a 37 per cent increase on the number of emergency parcels distributed the previous year — reflecting a record level of need seen in every part of the UK. But our figures (backed up by other research into deep poverty and hardship) show that this is not a sudden emergency: it’s the latest chapter in a longer-term crisis, with need more than doubling over the past five years.
Volunteers and staff at food banks have risen to every challenge and met every wave of need. They will keep doing that, but they are tired. Many are weary to the bone. One food bank leader described it as a “pressure-cooker situation”. Another, reflecting on the “peaks and troughs of demand” in the monthly data, said of this year: “Sadly, we’ve reached a new level that we never wanted to reach.”
Every day it becomes clearer to all of us that food banks and charitable support are not the solution. Food inflation is predicted to fall, after reductions in the cost of inputs such as energy and commodities, but that will not end this crisis. Millions of people will still find themselves unable to afford essentials, trapped in appalling situations, until we deliver real, sustainable solutions, starting with reforming universal credit.
It seems incredible that the level of this benefit isn’t set with reference to the actual essentials of life, but that’s the situation. The result is that the current rate has fallen significantly below the costs of food, clothing and basic household items such as cleaning products. We have calculated that a single adult needs £120 a week to cover these expenses, but universal credit provides only £85.
Charities simply can’t address the root causes of this unacceptable hardship on their own — we will never be able to do enough to turn back the tide of hunger.