UK needs a ‘minister for hunger’ to tackle food ‘scandal’, say MPs

MPS HAVE demanded a “minister for hunger” be appointed by the Government to tackle the “scandal” of hunger and malnutrition affecting millions, including children, in the UK.

The Environmental Audit Committee said it was “concerned that an item as significant as hunger and food insecurity in the UK has fallen between the cracks”.

There is a “doughnut-shaped hole” in domestic attempts to meet a UN-set goal of zero hunger and malnutrition by 2030, it warns in a new report. The committee called for the new post to oversee a cross-Government plan to tackle food insecurity, which is defined as “limited access to food... due to lack of money or other resources”.

The committee chairwoman, Labour’s Wakefield MP Mary Creagh, warned that while many are still recovering from Christmas excess, “the sad fact is that more children are growing up in homes where parents don’t have enough money to put food on the table”.

She said: “The combination of high living costs, stagnating wages and, often, the rollout of Universal Credit and the wider benefits system, means that levels of hunger in Britain are some of the highest across Europe.

“We found that nearly one in five children under 15 is living in a food insecure home – a scandal which cannot be allowed to continue.

“Instead of seeing hunger as an issue abroad, the Government’s New Year resolution should be one of taking urgent action at home to tackle hunger and malnutrition.

“This can only be addressed by setting clear UK-wide targets and by appointing a minister for hunger to deliver them.”

In its report into “Hunger, malnutrition and food insecurity in the UK”, the committee found that the Government’s widely publicised obesity strategy made no mention of “food insecurity”.

Also, the only ministry with a so-called single departmental plan (SDP) to tackle hunger was International Development, which tackles the problem abroad. The report cited figures from Unicef, which found in June 2017 that in the UK approximately 19 per cent of children under age 15 lived with an adult who was moderately or severely food insecure, of whom half are severely food insecure.

Separate figures from the British Association for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (Bapen) which said that the number of “undernourished” people in the UK was three million, with 1.3 million of those aged over 65. The UK, along with other UN members signed up to 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) in 2015, which set targets to be met by 2030. SDG 2, called Zero Hunger, aims to “end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture”.

Meanwhile, most Women’s Institute members have donated supplies, money or volunteered at local foodbanks, research suggests.

The National Federation of Women’s Institutes (NFWI) said it feared adults would continue to rely on supplies from foodbanks unless the Government took more action to tackle the issue.

Ann Jones of the NFWI said: “Historically, the WI was at the frontline of supplying food to a country ravaged by war; but today it is clear that WI members are battling to tackle food insecurity on a very different front – via donations to food banks and soup kitchens.”

This is a scandal which cannot be allowed to continue.

Mary Creagh, chairwoman of the Environmental Audit Committee.