Britain is starving: Food poverty should be higher on the political agenda
Image Courtesy: @jontyson on Unsplash
It’s a cold Sunday morning. Behind the doors of a Finsbury Park church, a dozen or so individuals are taking refuge from the sub-zero temperatures. Each week, the church attracts over one hundred visitors. Few of these visitors, however, are here for the service. Instead, these people, some of whom are homeless, all of whom are hungry, queue up twice a week for dried goods and a hot meal.
Volunteers battle with industrial-sized pots in a standard-sized kitchen. They sift through leftover veg from a nearby grocers and inspect the cans of tinned beans which sit lonesome in a normally-packed cupboard. The offering is small, but it’s better than nothing.
Working on the frontline of Britain’s battle against food poverty, I help run this community-based soup kitchen and food bank. We operate purely on donations, and aim to fill the hungry mouths and empty shelves of those who require our help.
Our tiny corner of Finsbury Park isn’t unique. Up and down the country, thousands of soup kitchens and food banks operate on a daily basis.
Britain is starving. In their annual ‘Hunger in the UK report’ the Trussell Trust, a network of UK foodbanks, estimated that 5.7 million people were supported by food aid between June 2022 and June 2023, with an estimated 14% of all UK adults affected by food insecurity.
At our kitchen, we tend not to ask questions. We have an open door policy and, unlike most places, we don’t require referrals. Anonymity is key. But after a few weeks of volunteering you quickly become acquainted with the same grateful characters and smiling faces.
As far as I know, there is no real pattern to who we help. We welcome everyone from refugee families housed at nearby hotels, to homeless folk who sofa surf and sleep on the streets. Some of our guests have come for years, far pre-dating my involvement with the kitchen. Some have only turned to us recently, using our services in light of growing bills and rising food prices.
Data from the Trussell Trust, however, shows that some households are more vulnerable to food poverty than others. Over three-quarters of people referred to Trussell Trust food banks reported that at least one member of their household was disabled, whilst 47% of households included children under the age of 16.
It’s hard not to smile at the childish laughter and giggles which so often engulf our kitchen. But behind the laughter there is a darker, more sinister reality. There is the truth that, in today’s Britain, thousands of children go to bed hungry.
I’m not a socialist, nor am I a republican. But I seriously struggle to reconcile the dichotomy of starving children in a country that spent almost £100 million on the King’s coronation, and houses multi-billion-pound tech companies such as Amazon and Google.
While some Labour politicians have committed to tackling child hunger, implementing universal access to free school meals in London and Wales, there exists a general unwillingness to discuss Britain’s battle with food poverty.
In many senses this is understandable. The Conservative government is trying to rebrand post-Brexit Britain as a global leader: exercising the UK’s diplomatic weight at international conferences like COP, and flexing its military capabilities alongside the United States in Yemen. Admitting to crippling food insecurity hardly bolsters this image.
Ignoring the issue, however, will only perpetuate the problem. Free school meals are often seen as a loss-maker. But research shows that they actually contribute far more to the economy than they cost. Accountancy firm PwC found that investing in free school meals could generate £8.9 billion for the economy, increasing lifetime earnings and saving costs for the NHS. In this way, tackling food poverty is not only a moral cause, it’s also an economic one.
When Prime Minister Rishi Sunak volunteered at a homeless shelter in December 2022, he was mocked for the publicity stunt, especially for his awkward interaction with one of the guests.
Tackling food poverty doesn’t require photoshoots and handshakes. But, in Sunak’s defence, politicians who give airtime to worthy causes like shelters shine a spotlight on important work that often goes unnoticed—even if they embarrass themselves in the process. They also provide an opportunity for policymakers to learn from on-the-ground experts about how best to legislate solutions, and where taxpayers money is most efficiently spent.
Feeding starving Britain is a complex problem. While the cost of living crisis certainly increased the financial strain on many households, food poverty was a problem long before Liz Truss’ kamikaze budget. Speaking from my own experience, what we need is not better funding for food banks and soup kitchens—although that would certainly take a lot of strain off of our shoulders. Instead, we need dramatic welfare reforms, an increase in universal credit and proper investment in public services.
It’s not nice to look someone in the eyes, knowing their empty stomach churns and growls for food. When we let our fellow humans starve, we treat them not as citizens, but as animals. That can’t be good for our society, our democracy, or our economy. The guests that I serve have, for far too long, been victims of austerity and crumbling infrastructure. Solving food poverty requires much more than filling plates and stocking shelves.
Hunger is far from glamorous. Fancy new hospital wings and even bingo halls look more attractive in political campaigns. But Britain is starving; if our politicians are serious about building a happier, more prosperous Britain, they must place food poverty at the top of the political agenda.
A country where children go to bed hungry is not a country that I want to live in. It’s not a place that I can call home, nor a nation that I can be proud of. As much as I love volunteering, I dream of the day that we can shut the kitchen doors for good.