Call to deal with root causes of food poverty as 480,000 parcels delivered in 18 months

The number of crisis food parcels being distributed in Scotland is almost double previous estimates, with campaigners predicting a similar increase across the rest of the UK as further data is gathered.

The new figures quantify for the first time the extent of provision by independent food banks in Scotland, an exercise that has yet to be conducted in England and Wales.

The data, collected by the Independent Food Aid Network (Ifan) and A Menu for Change, shows that between April 2017 and September 2018, 84 independent food banks across Scotland distributed 221,977 emergency food packages.

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Added to existing data from the Trussell Trust, the UK’s largest food bank charity, which works out of 137 food banks in Scotland, the newly-combined figures reveal nearly half a million, at least 480,583, food parcels were distributed by the Trussell Trust and independent food banks during the 18-month period.

The Trussell Trust’s most recent figures on Scottish food bank use, taken from April to September 2018, found a 15% year-on-year increase which it linked directly to the rollout of universal credit. A similar increase was detected across the whole of the UK.

Sabine Goodwin, of Ifan, who has mapped at least 803 independent food banks and food parcel distributors around the UK, said the figures were shocking but she hoped this “missing piece of the jigsaw” would act as a spur for action.

“The situation is becoming more and more desperate, and it doesn’t take much imagination to see that this is happening in England and Wales, too,” she said. “We need action that deals with the root causes [of food poverty]. We need a social security system that is fit for purpose, and wages that are related to the cost of living.”

Goodwin said the figures, which she helped to collate, were the tip of the iceberg as they did not reflect the use of other types of emergency food aid provision or the scale of people going hungry without accessing any help at all.

In September 2018, statistics published by the Scottish government which measured food insecurity for the first time revealed one in five of single parents in Scotland had gone hungry.

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Research has consistently shown that changes to the UK-wide benefits system, along with zero hours and temporary contracts that contribute to in-work poverty, is a key driver of food bank use.

Dr Mary Anne MacLeod, the research and policy officer at A Menu for Change, a three-year project partnering Oxfam Scotland with the Poverty Alliance, Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland and Nourish Scotland with the aim of reducing food bank use, urged the Scottish government to use its newly-devolved welfare powers to help poorer families.

There are increasing concerns that the proposed income supplement, specifically intended to reduce child poverty and due to start in 2020, remains ill-defined and will not be implemented in time to mitigate the devastating effects of Westminster-imposed austerity.

“The Scottish government has said that it needs to prioritise the secure transfer of benefits from Westminster, but they also made a commitment to boosting family income through the income supplement. These figures reveal the urgency and scale of the problem,” she said.