Policy & Research
The first Feeding Britain report was published in December 2014. The report carried the findings of a national inquiry, into the extent and causes of hunger and food insecurity, that was commissioned by a cross-party group of MPs and Peers. The inquiry received evidence from hundreds of people and organisations across the United Kingdom. Since that first report in 2014, Feeding Britain has continued to monitor the root causes of hunger, reveal the hidden or less well known aspects of food insecurity, and propose policy-related solutions to these injustices.
Our current policy priorities are:
Legislation
- Social Security Benefits (Healthy Eating) Bill, to ensure social security payments are calculated using a method which safeguards households’ ability to afford an adequate diet
- Healthy Start Scheme (Take-Up) Bill, to introduce automatic registration among all eligible families for Healthy Start in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland
- Benefit Sanctions (Warnings) Bill, to roll out a national ‘Yellow Card’ scheme in place of immediate benefit sanctions
- Workers (Rights and Definitions) Bill, to strengthen protection for people working on zero-hours contracts or in the ‘gig economy’
- Full Employment Bill, requiring the Government to pursue job creation policies which abolish long-term unemployment
- Disability Benefit Assessments (Recording) Bill, to give every applicant the right to an audio recording of their disability benefit assessment
- Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (Powers) Bill, to give the Ombudsman a more proactive role in identifying and remedying systemic problems within the social security system
- Under-Occupancy Penalty (Report) Bill, to require a review into the long-term effects of the ‘Spare Room Subsidy’/’Bedroom Tax’
- School Breakfast Bill, to ensure greater numbers of children are offered a free breakfasts at the beginning of the school day
Motions, debates, and amendments
- Lowering the cap on Universal Credit deductions
- Automatic registration for free school meals
- Revising the free school meal eligibility threshold in England
- Introducing a ‘Yellow Card’ warning system in place of immediate benefit sanctions
- Food waste reduction and reporting
- Resolving difficulties with Healthy Start prepaid cards
- Mechanisms to support new factory openings, create more manufacturing jobs, and provide more apprenticeships in areas with higher rates of poverty and unemployment
Additional priorities
- The role of cooking in the school curriculum
- Identifying and redistributing additional surplus food from the supply chain
- Strengthening the link between social security payments and the cost of living
- Ensuring refugees and asylum seekers have the means and accommodation to acquire, prepare, and cook meals
- Continuing to develop the Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme in England to ensure it reflects and meets the needs of all children and young people who stand to benefit most from the programme
- Securing government support for innovative local programmes which make food more affordable and accessible for people, and to accompany that low-cost food with wraparound services which maximise people’s incomes
- Gaining a commitment to a national strategy for the elimination of hunger and chronic food insecurity by 2030, following a similar path to the Biden-Harris Administration in the United States
Reports published by the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Hunger:
Feeding Britain: A strategy for zero hunger in England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland
An Evidence Review for the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Hunger in the United Kingdom
Feeding Britain: six months on
A route map to ending hunger as we know it in the United Kingdom
Britain’s not-so-hidden hunger
Hidden hunger and malnutrition in the elderly
The ‘Other Britain’ and the failure of the welfare state
Feeding Britain’s reports
Energy bills and household incomes, August 2022
A Hunger Trap – Eligibility criteria for free school meals in England, July 2022
Families’ early experiences of prepaid cards under Healthy Start, February 2022
Structural Inequalities: Secure work and a secure safety net, July 2021
Structural Inequalities: Structural inequality, disability and food insecurity, June 2021
Stemming the rise of child poverty, February 2021
Hunger and the need for food banks between March and September 2020, October 2020
Food and coping strategies during the Covid-19 pandemic, June 2020
Healthy Start vouchers: Trends in take-up and value, May 2020
Hungry for change: Working paper on free school meals, 2019
A Hunger Free UK, October 2018
Ending hunger in the holidays, December 2017
Bills sponsored by Feeding Britain’s supporters in Parliament, to address the drivers of hunger
Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (Powers) Bill
Under-Occupancy Penalty (Report) Bill
Social Security Benefits (Healthy Eating) Bill
Benefit Sanctions (Warnings) Bill
Disability Benefit Assessments (Recording) Bill
Full Employment Bill
Workers (Rights and Definition) Bill
School Holidays (Meals and Activities) Bill
Employment (Minimum Hours) Bill
Workers (Definition and Rights) Bill
Free School Meals (Automatic Registration of Eligible Children) Bill
Proposals tabled by Feeding Britain’s supporters in Parliament, to address the drivers of hunger
A new deal on prepayment meters
Department for Work and Pensions review of food bank use
Social security benefit increases and levels of inflation