ALMOST three million food parcels were handed out last year in Britain — over one million of them to children — in the fifth-richest economy on Earth.

The food charity, Trussell Trust, says that they distributed 37 per cent more food parcels in 2022-23 than they did in the previous year, taking the total to a staggering 2,986,203 — more than double what it was five years ago.

The number of parcels for children has also more than doubled over the same period, from less than half a million in 2017-18, to 1,139,553 in the past year.

As fuel prices and inflation rockets while wages and benefits remains stagnant over the last year, foodbanks are said to be forced to open outside of working hours to accommodate those in work, as 760,000 more people in total visited a foodbank for the first time. 

The need for emergency food parcels has risen throughout Britain and Northern Ireland, with each region and nation seeing demand rise by at least 28 per cent, but some areas have faired worse than others.

Wales had the highest rise at national level, at 41 per cent, followed by England at 37 per cent, Scotland at 30 per cent and Northern Ireland at 29 per cent, but it is in the regions of England than some of the most dramatic shifts have occurred.

A 42 per cent rise was recorded in south-west England and a 45 per cent increase in east England. 

It was the north-east that seen the largest jump in demand of all, distributing 54 per cent more parcels over the year, in what South Tyneside Foodbank’s Brian Thomas called a “real pressure-cooker situation” as donations failed to keep pace with demand.

Government cost-of-living payments were noted to have a positive, if short-lived effect, the trust’s senior research manager, Emma Newbury, said.

She said: “We see that there is some respite with the cost-of-living payments but that is short-lived and shows that one-off payments are unable to make lasting difference when people’s regular income from social security and work is just too low for them to be able to afford the essentials.”

The charity is calling on the government to commit long-term to peg benefit rates to the costs of essentials and that this backstop be “enshrined in law” alongside a long-term funding of crisis support.

Emma Revie, the trust’s chief executive, said: “For too long people have been going without because social security payments do not reflect life’s essential costs and people are being pushed deeper into hardship as a result.

“If we are to stop this continued growth and end the need for foodbanks then the UK government must ensure that the standard allowance of universal credit is always enough to cover essential costs.”

Unite the Union, whose Unite for a Workers’ Economy campaign mobilises on food poverty — scoring a notable victory with its “Feed the weans” campaign to end school-meal debt in Glasgow last month — sees government indifference and corporate greed being at the heart of the problem.

Unite for a Workers’ Economy’s Clare Peden commented: “Food is not a luxury, it’s a right, yet more and more people are experiencing food poverty.

“All against a backdrop of excessive profiteering and corporate bosses enjoying massive payouts.

“We are tired of the politics of disappointment, so together we must organise in our communities and demand better.

“There has never been a more important time to fight for an economy that delivers a fair deal for workers and their families — a workers’ economy.”

Labour’s shadow work and pensions secretary Jonathan Ashworth said the “devastating” increase in emergency food parcels is the “price families are paying for 13 years of Tory economic failure.”

He said: “The simple truth is foodbanks are stepping in because Tory ministers let inflation soar, increased taxes on working people and crashed the economy forcing both mortgages and rent bills up.”

A government spokesperson said: “We are committed to eradicating poverty and we recognise the pressures of the rising cost of living which is why we have uprated benefits by 10.1 per cent as well as making an unprecedented increase to the National Living Wage this month.”