Britain faces deepening hunger crisis as 14 million go without food to save money, research shows
New data from food bank network the Trussell Trust showed a total of 3.8 million children (27 per cent) were missing out on meals, leading researchers to demand the government take swift action
More than 14 million Brits are going without food because they can't afford it, prompting experts to call on the Government to do more to help families in the deepening cost of living crisis.
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Shocking new data from food bank network the Trussell Trust shows Britain faces a deepening national hunger crisis, with a growing number of households forced to skip or cut back on meals.
Within these starving homes live a total of 3.8 million children (27 per cent), leading researchers to demand the government take swift action, as the situation was only getting worse.
Their figures showed the number of people going hungry had risen sharply from 2022 - when a similar report identified 11.6 million people were in this horrifying position.
Trussell said low incomes, insufficient benefit rates, rising rents and soaring energy bills were to blame for the rise.
But they added that Labour's eradication of the two-child benefit cap would be one of the many things ministers could do to tackle the crisis.
Helen Barnard, director of policy, research and impact at Trussell, said: "Hunger and hardship are increasingly seen as a normal part of everyday life in the UK. This is not an inevitable trend, but the result of systems that urgently need updating."
The report found around three in 10 children (31%) aged five and under were living in households facing hunger.
It also alarmingly highlighted that “paid employment no longer protects people from hardship”, as nearly three in 10 households (30%) using food banks were working families.
The analysis, carried out in the middle of 2024, was based on an Ipsos survey of almost 4,000 adults who were referred to UK food banks.
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Therefore, the results reflect a time before Sir Keir Starmer came to power, but the Trussell Trust says the situation has only got worse in the last year.
Labour promised to launch an “ambitious strategy” to tackle child poverty in their election manifesto and end the nation's reliance on food parcels, but the publication of this plan was delayed from spring to autumn this year.
The government is also under pressure to scrap the two-child benefit cap, a Conservative-era policy which prevents parents from claiming universal credit or tax credits for a third or subsequent child.
Ending the cap would lift 670,000 people out of severe hardship, including 470,000 children, experts say.
Alison Garnham, chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group, said: "The two-child limit is rolling out hunger and hardship right across the country, pulling more than 100 children into poverty every day.
"Unless the policy is scrapped, there will be more children in poverty at the end of this parliament than when Labour took office – and the government’s promise to deliver will ring hollow to millions of families."
Campaigners and politicians slammed the findings of the report and said it should “shame the government to its core”.
Left-wing Labour MP Kim Johnson described hunger in Britain as “a scandalous political failure".
He told the Independent: “Years of austerity, insecure work, stagnant wages and a broken welfare system have pushed millions into hardship while the wealthy few continue to thrive. People deserve dignity, not destitution."
Trussell also recommended that ministers end the freeze on local housing allowance (LHA), which was reintroduced in April and caps the amount households can receive in housing benefit to cover rent.
The freeze on LHA will make private renters £243 worse off per year in 2025-26, rising to £703 by 2029-30 if it remains in place, research from Joseph Rowntree Foundation shows.
Responding to Trussell’s report, chief analyst at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Peter Matejic said: "It's entirely unacceptable that in the UK in 2025 millions of low-income households are facing hunger and hardship, even more so given the numbers have risen so sharply."
A spokesperson for the Department for Work and Pensions said: “This government is determined to tackle the unacceptable rise in food bank dependence.
"In addition to extending free school meals and ensuring the poorest children don’t go hungry in the holidays through a new £1bn crisis support package, our child poverty taskforce will publish an ambitious strategy later this year.
"We are also overhauling jobcentres and reforming the broken welfare system to support people into good, secure jobs, while always protecting those who need it most."