Rising Food Bank Dependence Highlights Deepening Hardship Across the UK

Published: 10 September 2025 | The English Chronicle Online

The UK’s reliance on food banks is rising sharply, reflecting growing public discontent with falling living standards and intensifying concerns over child poverty, according to the country’s largest charitable food provider. Trussell Trust warned that without urgent and ambitious government action, severe hardship risks becoming entrenched, creating a “new normal” of hunger and deprivation.

Trussell’s biennial Hunger in the UK report, published on Wednesday, estimates that over 14 million people faced food insecurity in 2024, including 3.8 million children, up from 11.6 million in 2022. The charity highlighted that having a job no longer guarantees protection from hunger, with three in ten people referred to food banks coming from working households, compared with 24% in 2022. Low-paid or precarious roles, such as carers and bus drivers, were among those most at risk.

The report underlines the scale of hardship across deprived areas, where families were three times more likely to go hungry than those in wealthier neighbourhoods. It also criticises the two-child limit on benefits, arguing that scrapping the policy could lift 670,000 people, including 470,000 children, out of poverty. Introduced in 2017, the limit denies social security support to third and subsequent children in households claiming universal credit.

Helen Barnard, Trussell’s director of policy, said: “Parents are losing sleep worrying about how they will afford basic needs—from school trips and new shoes to bus fares and keeping the lights on. We have already created a generation of children who have never known life without food banks. That must change.”

The charity acknowledged the government’s steps to build more social housing and strengthen employment rights but emphasised that such measures can only partially address immediate needs. Trussell urged ministers to present clear and effective strategies in the forthcoming child poverty reduction plan and autumn budget, describing these as critical opportunities to tackle entrenched hunger.

A spokesperson for the Department for Work and Pensions responded that the government is “determined to tackle the unacceptable rise in food bank dependence.” They cited measures including the extension of free school meals, £1 billion to reform crisis support, and the upcoming child poverty strategy. The spokesperson added that reforms to job centres and the welfare system are designed to support people into secure employment while safeguarding those most in need.

Trussell warned that without decisive action, reliance on food banks could become a normalized part of life for millions of UK families, signalling an urgent call for policy change and greater investment to reverse the trend of deepening hardship.