The Role of Food Banks on a UK Right to Food
| Author | Gemma Daly |
The Role of Food Banks on a UK Right to Food
Gemma Daly*
The proliferation of food banks in the UK has spurred various reports
and investigations into the causes of food poverty and food insecurity in
Britain, linked to critiques of the coalition and majority Conservative
governments’ austerity policies. This Article uniquely focuses on the
need for this debate to move towards a UK right to food, due to the
useful legal tools available, as opposed to the vaguer frameworks of food
security and food poverty. The author provides a critical analysis of the
negative role food banks themselves are playing on the potential for a UK
right to food, with some comparative analysis to long-term food aid in
other developed countries. The author proposes greater advocacy and
campaign work by food banks for a long-term right to food in Britain,
alongside necessarily short-term, emergency-only food aid.
I. INTRODUCTION
Charitable provision of food aid in the United Kingdom (UK) has risen
dramatically in recent years, with food banks now well established across the
country. The ro le of charit ies in providing basic necessities has been critic ised as
concealing the government’s socio-economic obligations; one food bank even
shut down so as to not be complicit in government cuts to local authorit ies’
emergency funds.1 This Article shall explore the role of food banks in relation to
the right to food (RTF) in the UK; how food aid might undermine government
obligations, and the requirement of a stronger advocacy approach for a UK
RTF.
* Gemma Daly graduated from the University of Bristol in 2012 with a first class honours LLB
and is currently a SOAS student completing an LLM specialising in Human Rights, Conflict and
Justice. Gemma is also a specialist welfare rights adviser and food bank volunteer. She would
like to thank Professor Lynn Welchman for her continued support, Tom Ashdown for the many
hours spent as a springboard for her ideas, and all the clients who have contributed to her
increasing understanding of the impact of welfare reform and food banks.
1 Jonathan Owen, ‘Busy Nottingham Food Bank to Close in Protest at Harsh Council Cuts’ (The
Independent, 26 November 2014)
protest-at-harsh-council-cuts-9885641.html> accessed 26 February 2015.
20 The Role of Food Banks on a UK Right to Food
www.soaslawjournal.org
1.1 Background: The Emergence of UK Food Banks
There is general consensus in the literature that the existence of food banks and
food aid in the UK has increased exponentially since the 2008 financial crisis
and post-2010 coalition government,2 linked by reputable sources to austerity
measures, welfare reforms, central and local government funding cuts and low
wages.3 Whilst the UK Conservative Party originally commended food banks as
the ‘“big society” at work’,4 they have become ‘increasingly defensive about the
impact of their own policies’5 and controversially suggested that food banks
‘generate a supply-led demand’.6 This contradicts available research,7 including
the report commissioned by the Department for Enviro nment, Food and Rural
Affairs (DEFRA), which found no evidence that supply of food aid increases
demand. 8 The UK is increasingly witnessing an institutionalisation of food
banks, akin to the USA,9 Canada10 and Australia.11 The role of the British welfare
state has been gradually eroded since 1980s Thatcherism and according to
Lansley and Mack, there is consensus among the current Conservative Party
government and the Labour Party opposition for a ‘leaner state’. 12 This is
substantiated by recent Labour guarantees that ‘Labour would be tougher than
2 Graham Riches and Tiina Silvasti (eds), First World Hunger Revisited: Food Charity or the Right to
Food? (2nd edn, Palgrave Macmillan 2014) 4; Elizabeth Dowler, ‘Food Banks and Food Justice in
“Austerity Britain”’ in Graham Riches and Tiina Silvasti (eds), First World Hunger Revisited: Food
Charity or the Right to Food? (2nd edn, Palgrave Macmillan 2014) 160; Stewart Lansley and
Joanna Mack, Breadline Britain: The Rise of Mass Poverty (Oneworld Publications 2015) 213; Just
Fair, ‘Going Hungry? The Human Right to Food in the UK’ (Just Fair 2014) 4.
3 Lansley and Mack (n 2) 213; Dowler (n 2) 161–2; Just Fair (n 2); Rachel Loopstra and others,
‘Austerity, Sanctions, and the Rise of Food Banks in the UK’ (2015) 350 BMJ h1775.
4 Lansley and Mack (n 2) 209.
5 ibid.
6 Dowler (n 2) 169.
7 Hannah Lambie-Mumford and others, ‘Household Food Security in the UK: A Review of Food
Aid’ (Food Ethics Council and The University of Warwick 2014) 5.
8 ibid.
9 Janet Poppendieck, ‘Food Assistance, Hunger and the End of Welfare in the USA’ in Riches
and Silvasti (n 2) 181–190.
10 Graham Riches and Valerie Tarasuk, ‘Canada: Thirty Years of Food Charity and Public Policy
Neglect’ in Riches and Silvasti (n 2).
11 Sue Booth, ‘Food Banks in Australia: Discouraging the Right to Food’ in Riches and Silvasti (n
2).
12 Lansley and Mack (n 2) 214, 217.
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