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<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> </p><p>We
understand the data limitations in this area, and therefore from April 2021 we introduced
a set of questions into the Family Resources Survey (FRS) to measure and track foodbank
usage. 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 has announced unprecedented
support within its Growth Plan to protect households and businesses from high energy
prices. The Energy Price Guarantee and the Energy Bill Relief Scheme are supporting
millions of households and businesses with rising energy costs, and the Chancellor
made clear they will continue to do so from now until April next year. 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>For those who require additional support the
government has provided an additional £500 million to help households with the cost
of essentials, on top of what we have already provided since October 2021, bringing
the total funding for this support to £1.5 billion. For the period October 2022-March
2023, we are providing an additional £421million to help households in England with
the cost of essentials, and the devolved administrations will receive £79 million
through the Barnett formula.</p>
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