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Labour has set a dramatic target to halve food bank use a year after Jeremy Corbyn enters Downing Street.

And the party will aim to end the need for food banks completely within just three years of office.

The ambitious pledges will be unveiled after the number of emergency food parcels handed out by the Trussell Trust charity soared to 1.6million last year.

The targets will not be legally binding and food banks will not be shut down to meet them.

But they would lay down the gauntlet to an incoming Prime Minister to stop Brits going hungry under a Labour government.

(Image: Getty Images)

Green-fingered Jeremy Corbyn will also oversee a £6m fund for allotments - alongside other measures like community kitchens and healthy eating classes in 50 deprived areas.

And Labour will announce plans for a Fair Food Act to ensure everyone in the UK has a legal "right to food", similar to other human rights.

The new law would create a National Food Commission - an independent body that could take legal action against the government or councils if they breached people's rights.

Shadow Environment Secretary Sue Hayman, who will announce the measures on Tuesday, said: “This government’s mean-spirited welfare policies and failure to think differently has brought the situation to crisis point.

"Food is a basic human right.

"We will make sure no one in the country needs to go hungry."

(Image: Getty Images)

The policies come after the number of food banks in the UK topped 2,000, with millions of children living in poverty.

Some 1.58million three-day food parcels were handed out by the Trussell Trust last year, up from 913,000 in 2013/14.

Labour said it would try to meet the new targets by reforming the benefit system after benefit delays prompted a fifth of all visits to food banks.

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell said this week he would aim to "get rid of bloody Universal Credit " as part of a new programme for government.

Labour's official stance is still to stop the benefit's rollout and reform it, rather than scrap it. But MPs believe a top Labour figure - including possibly Jeremy Corbyn - could announce a change in policy this week.

(Image: REUTERS)

Labour's plan for a National Food Commission is separate to the target to end food bank use and will be more long term.

It would monitor hunger and food insecurity in Britain and make recommendations for how the system would change.

It would be able to intervene directly in cases where people have been failed and left hungry by councils or the Department for Work and Pensions.

It would also support the development of community "food plans", helped by a £6m pilot grant split between 50 areas.

The money would pay for allotments, community gardens and training on healthy diets in a bid to make Brits less dependent on major supermarkets and food from abroad.

Jeremy Corbyn is keen allotment-holder and once presented BBC interviewers with a jar of homemade jam as a gift.