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1684475

registered interest
date	23/01/2024
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Food Poverty
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent estimate his Department has made of the number of people in food poverty.
tabling member constituency	Huddersfield
tabling member printed	Mr Barry Sheerman
uin	10983
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 29/01/2024 answer text <p>The latest statistics show that in 2021/22, 7% (4.7m) of all individuals lived in food insecure households. For working age adults this figure was 7% (2.9m), for children it was 12% (1.7m) and for pensioners it was 1% (0.2m).</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Foodbanks are independent, charitable organisations and the Department for Work and Pensions does not have any role in the operation of foodbanks. We do not have reliable statistics on the number of foodbanks operating.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p> answering member constituency Bury St Edmunds answering member printed Jo Churchill grouped question UIN 10982 question first answered 29/01/2024 14:51:25 answering member 4380 label Biography information for Jo Churchill
tabling member	411 label Biography information for Mr Barry Sheerman

1681592

registered interest
date	11/01/2024
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Food Poverty
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the potential implications for his Department's policies of the report entitled Without access to justice published by Feeding Liverpool and the University of Liverpool School of Law and Social Justice in January 2024.
tabling member constituency	Liverpool, Walton
tabling member printed	Dan Carden
uin	9281
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 19/01/2024 answer text <p>No assessment has been made. The Department continues to monitor the impact of its policies and keeps them under review.</p> answering member constituency Bury St Edmunds answering member printed Jo Churchill question first answered 19/01/2024 12:06:40 answering member 4380 label Biography information for Jo Churchill
tabling member	4651 label Biography information for Dan Carden

1661255

registered interest
date	18/09/2023
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Food Poverty
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate his Department has made of the numbers of people living in food poverty in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England; what recent assessment he has made of the impact of increases in the cost of living on levels of food poverty in those areas; and what steps his Department is taking to reduce food poverty.
tabling member constituency	Coventry North East
tabling member printed	Colleen Fletcher
uin	199991
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 16/10/2023 answer text <p>This government takes the issue of food security very seriously and is committed to understanding and addressing food poverty. This is why we added food security questions to the Family Resources Survey in 2019/20, and also why we have published official estimates of foodbank use for the first time in March 2023.</p><p> </p><p>National statistics on food security and food bank use for 2021/22 are available <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/family-resources-survey-financial-year-2021-to-2022" target="_blank">here.</a> We aim to publish statistics for 2022/23 in March 2024.</p><p> </p><p>These questions remain in the survey and will allow us to track food security and foodbank use over time. Alongside the broad suite of poverty data, these will help the Government to understand more about the characteristics of people most in need and help shape future policy considerations.</p><p> </p><p>Statistics are not available at the constituency level.</p><p> </p><p>This Government understands the pressures people are facing with the cost of living which is why we are providing support totalling over £94bn over 2022-23 and 2023-24 to help households and individuals with the rising cost of living. Over 8 million UK households on eligible means tested benefits will receive additional Cost of Living Payments, totalling up to £900 in the 2023-24 financial year.</p><p>Government is providing an additional £1 billion of funding, including Barnett impact, to enable the extension of the Household Support Fund in England this financial year bringing total funding to £2.5 billion. In England this will be delivered through an extension to the Household Support Fund backed by £842 million, running from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024, which local authorities use to help households with the cost of essentials. In the instance of Coventry City Council £6,448,445 has been allocated for the period 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024 and £3,224,222.30 was allocated for the period 1 October 2022 to 31 March 2023.</p> answering member constituency Mid Sussex answering member printed Mims Davies question first answered 16/10/2023 16:34:28 answering member 4513 label Biography information for Mims Davies
tabling member	4378 label Biography information for Colleen Fletcher

1649415

registered interest
date	30/06/2023
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Food Poverty
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the report by the Trussell Trust Hunger in the UK, published in June; whether they intend to publish a response; and if so, when.
tabling member printed	Lord Hylton
uin	HL8957
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 11/07/2023 answer text <p>The Department for Work and Pensions has no plans to publish a response to the report by the Trussell Trust on Hunger in the UK. However, we continue to monitor new research and evidence produced by external organisations.</p><p> </p><p>Government takes the issue of food security seriously, which is why we added internationally used food security questions to the Family Resources Survey in 2019/20. These questions remain in the survey and will allow us to track food security over time</p><p> </p><p>Building on the food insecurity data which this Government first published in 2019/20, we have published official estimates of foodbank use for the first time. These will, alongside the broad suite of poverty data, help the Government to understand more about the characteristics of people most in need and help shape future policy considerations.</p><p> </p><p>We will continue to work across Government to support the most vulnerable.</p> answering member printed Viscount Younger of Leckie question first answered 11/07/2023 15:54:37 answering member 4169 label Biography information for Viscount Younger of Leckie
tabling member	2018 label Biography information for Lord Hylton

1639888

registered interest
date	23/05/2023
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Food Poverty
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the data published by the Trussell Trust on 26 April which showed an increase in its emergency food parcel distribution over the period April 2022 to March 2023; and what steps they will take in response.
tabling member printed	Lord Allen of Kensington
uin	HL8036
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 07/06/2023 answer text <p>We take the issue of food security seriously, which is why we added internationally used food security questions to the Family Resources Survey in 19/20. These questions remain in the survey and will allow us to track food security over time.</p><p> </p><p>Building on the food insecurity data which this Government first published in 2019/20, we have published official estimates of foodbank use for the first time this year covering the period 2021/22. These will, alongside the broad suite of poverty data, help shape future policy considerations. The new statistics on foodbank usage will help Government to understand more about the characteristics of people most in need and we will continue to work across Government to support the most vulnerable.</p><p> </p><p>The Government recognises the pressures people are facing and has acted, providing total support of over £94bn over 2022/23 and 2023/24 to help households and individuals with the rising cost of living. In April 2023 we uprated benefit rates and State Pensions by 10.1 per cent, as well as increasing benefit cap levels by the same amount.</p> answering member printed Viscount Younger of Leckie question first answered 07/06/2023 12:47:52 answering member 4169 label Biography information for Viscount Younger of Leckie
tabling member	4304 label Biography information for Lord Allen of Kensington

1580102

registered interest
date	24/01/2023
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Food Poverty
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will hold discussions with Cabinet colleagues on (a) methods to identify in schools families experiencing food poverty and (b) provide additional welfare support to those families in those circumstances.
tabling member constituency	York Central
tabling member printed	Rachael Maskell
uin	131250
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 01/02/2023 answer text <p>We recognise the importance of understanding who is experiencing food poverty. That is why we introduced a set of questions into the Family Resources Survey (FRS) to measure and track foodbank usage from April 2021. The first results of these questions are due to be published in March 2023 subject to usual quality assurance.</p><p> </p><p>The Government spends approximately £1 billion annually on Free School Meals (FSM) and remains committed to supporting children, including through the Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme and school breakfast clubs. The Government provides funding of over £200 million a year for HAF, which provides healthy meals and holiday club places to children from low-income families. The Government is allocating £24 million over two years for the national school breakfast programme, which benefits over 2,000 schools across the country. We want to make sure as many eligible pupils as possible are claiming their free school meals. To support this, we provide an Eligibility Checking System (ECS) to make it as quick and straightforward as possible for schools and local authorities to determine eligibility.</p><p> </p><p>This Government is committed to a sustainable, long-term approach to tackling poverty and supporting people on lower incomes in this country. In 2022/23 we will spend £245 billion through the welfare system in Great Britain including £111 billion on people of working age. In 2023/24, subject to parliamentary approval, we are uprating all benefit rates and State Pensions by 10.1%, and in order to increase the number of households who can benefit from these uprating decisions, the benefit cap levels are also increasing by the same amount.</p><p> </p><p>With over 1.16 million vacancies across the UK, our focus is firmly on supporting people into and to progress in work. Our approach is based on clear evidence about the importance of employment, particularly where it is full-time, in substantially reducing the risk of poverty. The latest available data on in-work poverty also shows that in 2019/20, there was only a 3% chance of children being in poverty (absolute, before housing costs) where both parents worked full-time compared with 42% where one or more parents in a couple was in part-time work.</p> answering member constituency Mid Sussex answering member printed Mims Davies question first answered 01/02/2023 11:59:06 answering member 4513 label Biography information for Mims Davies
tabling member	4471 label Biography information for Rachael Maskell

1505464

registered interest
date	06/09/2022
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Food Poverty
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate her Department has made of the number of people living in food poverty in (a) Coventry North East constituency, (b) Coventry, (c) the West Midlands and (d) England; what recent assessment she has made of the effect of the rising cost of living on the levels of food poverty in those areas; and what steps her Department is taking to alleviate food poverty levels in those areas.
tabling member constituency	Coventry North East
tabling member printed	Colleen Fletcher
uin	48378
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 22/09/2022 answer text <p>National and regional statistics on the number of food insecure households are published annually in the “Family Resources Survey” publication. Statistics on levels of food insecure households in England and the West Midlands, covering 2020/21, can be found at: <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/family-resources-survey-financial-year-2020-to-2021" target="_blank">https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/family-resources-survey-financial-year-2020-to-2021</a>. Data for Coventry and the Coventry North East constituency is unavailable due to insufficient sample size.</p><p> </p><p>No such assessments have been made of the effect of the rising cost of living on the levels of food poverty in these areas.</p><p> </p><p>The government understands the pressures people are facing with the cost of living and has taken further decisive action to support people with their energy bills. The new “Energy Price Guarantee” will mean a typical UK household will now pay up to an average £2,500 a year on their energy bill for the next two years from 1 October, saving the average household in Great Britain at least £1,000 from October. This is in addition to the over £37bn of cost of living support announced earlier this year which includes the £400 non-repayable discount to eligible households provided through the Energy Bills Support Scheme.</p><p> </p><p>This includes a £650 cost of living payment (paid in 2 lump sums of £326 and £324) which has been designed to target support at more than 8 million low-income households on means-tested benefits. The payment of £326 was paid between the 14 July and the 31 July for most people and the payment of £324 will be made in the Autumn. In addition, 6 million eligible disabled people will receive a one-off disability Cost of Living Payment of £150 from 20 September and pensioner households will receive a one-off payment of £300 through and as an addition to the Winter Fuel Payment from November.</p><p> </p><p>The government is providing an additional £500 million to help households with the cost of household essentials, on top of what we have already provided since October 2021, bringing total funding for this support to £1.5 billion. In England this will take the form of an extension to the Household Support Fund backed by £421m. Devolved administrations will receive £79 million through the Barnett formula.</p><p> </p><p>The current Household Support Fund runs from 1 April to 30 September, with Coventry City Council allocated £3,224,222.30 for this period. During this period, a total of £49,520,715.25 has been allocated to West Midlands Local Authorities, which takes their total funding under both Household Support Funds to £99,041,430.50. Local Authorities have the discretion to design their own funds, within the parameters of the guidance and the grant determination.</p> answering member constituency Banbury answering member printed Victoria Prentis question first answered 22/09/2022 16:47:11 answering member 4401 label Biography information for Victoria Prentis
tabling member	4378 label Biography information for Colleen Fletcher

1461088

registered interest
date	10/05/2022
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Food Poverty
house id	2
legislature	25277 pref label House of Lords
question text	To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the report by the Trussell Trust on 27 April that over 2 million people in the UK relied on food parcels in 2021/22 in order to prevent hunger and malnutrition; and whether they are developing policies to meet both short-term and long-term food needs.
tabling member printed	Lord Hylton
uin	HL74
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 24/05/2022 answer text <p>No such assessment has been made.</p><p> </p><p>Foodbanks are independent, charitable organisations and the Department for Work and Pensions does not have any role in their operation. There is no consistent and accurate measure of food bank usage at a constituency or national level.</p> answering member printed Baroness Stedman-Scott question first answered 24/05/2022 16:54:13 answering member 4174 label Biography information for Baroness Stedman-Scott
tabling member	2018 label Biography information for Lord Hylton

1417310

registered interest
date	27/01/2022
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Food Poverty
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to prevent households on lower incomes falling into food poverty as a result of recent rises in the price of basic foodstuff.
tabling member constituency	Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough
tabling member printed	Gill Furniss
uin	113221
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 01/02/2022 answer text <p>This Government is wholly committed to supporting low-income families, including through spending over £110 billion on welfare support for people of working age in 2021/22 and by increasing the National Living Wage by 6.6% to £9.50 from April 2022. We take the issue of food security seriously, which is why we added internationally used food security questions to the Family Resources Survey in 2019/20 and published the data in March last year.</p><p> </p><p>With the success of the vaccine rollout and record job vacancies, our focus now is on continuing to support people into and to progress in work. Our multi-billion-pound Plan for Jobs, which has recently been expanded by £500 million, will help people across the UK to find work and to boost their wages and prospects. This approach is based on clear evidence about the importance of employment, particularly where it is full-time, in substantially reducing the risks of poverty.</p><p> </p><p>In addition, Universal Credit recipients in work are now benefitting from a reduction in the Universal Credit taper rate from 63% to 55%, while eligible in-work claimants can also benefit from changes to the Work Allowance. These measures represent, for the lowest paid in society, an effective tax cut of around £2.2 Billion in 2022-23, and are now benefitting almost two million of the lowest paid workers by £1000 a year on average.</p><p> </p><p>We recognise that some people may require extra support over the winter, which is why vulnerable households across the country are now able to access a new £500 million support fund to help them with essentials. The Household Support Fund provides £421 million to help vulnerable people in England with the cost of food, utilities and wider essentials. The Barnett Formula applies in the usual way, with the devolved administrations receiving almost £80 million.</p><p> </p><p>To support low income families further we have increased the value of Healthy Start Food Vouchers from £3.10 to £4.25, helping eligible low income households buy basic foods like milk, fruit and vitamins, and we are also investing over £200m a year from 2022 to continue our Holiday Activities and Food programme which is already providing enriching activities and healthy meals to children in all English Local Authorities.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Macclesfield answering member printed David Rutley question first answered 01/02/2022 11:08:26 answering member 4033 label Biography information for David Rutley
tabling member	4571 label Biography information for Gill Furniss

1416944

registered interest
date	26/01/2022
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Food Poverty
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether she has a timeframe for ending food poverty.
tabling member constituency	York Central
tabling member printed	Rachael Maskell
uin	112612
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 31/01/2022 answer text <p>Foodbanks are independent, charitable organisations and the Department for Work and Pensions does not have any role in their operation. There is no consistent and accurate measure of food bank usage at a constituency or national level.</p><p><strong> </strong></p><p>This Government is wholly committed to supporting low-income families, including through spending over £110 billion on welfare support for people of working age in 2021/22 and by increasing the National Living Wage by 6.6% to £9.50 from April 2022.</p><p> </p><p>With the success of the vaccine rollout and record job vacancies, our focus now is on continuing to support people into and to progress in work. Our multi-billion-pound Plan for Jobs, which has recently been expanded by £500 million, will help people across the UK to find work and to boost their wages and prospects.</p><p> </p><p>In addition, Universal Credit recipients in work are now benefitting from a reduction in the Universal Credit taper rate from 63% to 55%, while eligible in-work claimants can also benefit from changes to the Work Allowance. These measures represent, for the lowest paid in society, an effective tax cut of around £2.2 Billion in 2022-23, and are now benefitting almost two million of the lowest paid workers by £1000 a year on average.</p><p> </p><p>We recognise that some people require extra support over the winter, which is why vulnerable households across the country are now able to access a new £500 million support fund to help them with essentials. The Household Support Fund provides £421 million to help vulnerable people in England with the cost of food, utilities and wider essentials. The Barnett Formula applies in the usual way, with the devolved administrations receiving almost £80 million.</p><p> </p><p>To support low income families further we have increased the value of Healthy Start Food Vouchers from £3.10 to £4.25, helping eligible low income households buy basic foods like milk, fruit and vitamins, and we are also investing over £200m a year from 2022 to continue our Holiday Activities and Food programme which is already providing enriching activities and healthy meals to children in all English LAs.</p><p> </p><p>We take the issue of food security seriously, which is why we added internationally used food security questions to the Family Resources Survey in 2019/20 and published the data in March this year. These questions allow us to track food security over time. Statistics on household food security from the Family Resources Survey for the financial year 2021/22 have a provisional release date of March 2023, subject to the usual quality assurance.</p><p> </p><p> </p> answering member constituency Macclesfield answering member printed David Rutley grouped question UIN 112613 112621 question first answered 31/01/2022 15:54:22 answering member 4033 label Biography information for David Rutley
tabling member	4471 label Biography information for Rachael Maskell