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Lobby Day! Guarantee Our Essentials
Every person in our community should be able to afford the essentials.
In the last financial year, thanks to the amazing generosity of our supporters, we provided a minimum 3 days of meals for around 4100 local people facing hardship, of which over 1400 were children. Thats around 48 tonnes of food
We know this is just the tip of the iceberg as our research finds that one in five people face hunger across the UK due to a lack of money.
Our social security system should support anyone in need of help, but right now it’s not providing enough income to cover the cost of life’s essentials, with most people at food banks in receipt of Universal Credit.
We’re calling on the UK government for an ‘Essentials Guarantee’ to make sure that the basic rate of Universal Credit is at least enough to afford the essentials we all need, such as food, household bills and travel costs.
Around 86% of low-income households receiving Universal Credit are going without at least one essential like food, a warm home or toiletries.
Help us ensure everyone can afford life’s essentials
You can have your say by contacting your new MP and asking them to bring it to the attention of the government, just as representatives of the foodbank will be doing on June 18th, in parliament.
Warren Done, the foodbank project manager said “Here at Atherton & Leigh foodbank we are seeing more and more people plunged deeper into poverty and coming through the doors. In the last 12 months we provided emergency food parcels to help feed 4100 adults and children. Thats local people who couldn’t afford the essentials. 1400 of these were provided for children. These statistics are reflective of the picture across the UK as the Trussell recently announced that their network, of which we’re a part, distributed millions of emergency food parcels in the last financial year.
“In our food bank, the majority of the people that we support are in receipt of Universal Credit, including many who will also be in work. Right now, Universal Credit is not providing enough to cover the costs of life’s essentials, such as food, household bills or travel costs”.
“The Trussell Trust estimates that to afford even these core essential costs a single person is £120 a week, however the basic rate of Universal Credit is just £92 a week. This is already too low, yet people needing to use our food bank can have up to 25% of that deducted to repay debts, such as advance payments and budgeting loans from the Department for Work & Pensions”
“We’re proud of the work that we’re doing to help meet the needs of our community, but we don’t want to exist. We believe everyone should have enough money to be able to afford to buy food and other essentials.”
Right now, 9.3 million people are facing hunger and hardship across the UK. The basic rate of Universal Credit does not cover the cost of the essentials people need to survive and is a big driver of severe hardship. Alongside this, the planned cuts to disabled people’s social security risk plunging even more people into hunger and hardship.
That’s why we’re working with Trussell and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation to call for an Essentials Guarantee within Universal Credit, which means the basic rate at least covers life’s essentials and that support can never be pulled below that level.