Growing demand for food banks 'a human rights failure'

Families forced to use food banks in the UK are being denied a fundamental human right, according to a new report.

With demand for food aid continuing to rise, Human Rights Watch, a New York-based NGO, claims the UK government is failing to meet its duty under international law to ensure the right to adequate food.

Its report - Nothing Left In The Cupboards: Austerity, Welfare Cuts, And The Right To Food In The UK - is based on research in three deprived areas of England, but the group says the government's human rights responsibilities extend to all parts of the UK.

Kartik Raj, Western Europe researcher at Human Rights Watch, said: "The way the UK government has handled its reduction in welfare spending has left parents unable to feed their children in the fifth-largest economy in the world.

"The UK government should ensure everyone's right to food rather than expecting charities to step in and fill the gap."

The report says the government should announce publicly that it accepts the right to food as a basic human right and should pay compensation to those who cannot get enough to eat.

It calls for changes to the benefits system, including the way Universal Credit is paid, and says the government and MPs should "develop a statutory requirement to measure and monitor food insecurity, with periodic reporting to parliament".

Figures released last month by The Trussell Trust, which operates the biggest network of food banks in the UK, showed it gave out 1.6m emergency food parcels last year, with more than half a million of which were for children.

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The Goodwin Pantry in Hull was one of the food aid centres visited by Human Rights Watch researchers.

It opened two years ago and distributes surplus supermarket food to around 300 low income members who pay £3 for a basket of 10 or more items.

One smartly-dressed mother in her 20s, with a baby in a push chair, burst into tears as she explained how maternity leave and money owed to her husband had forced her to rely on food aid from the charity.

Asking to remain anonymous, she said she had a mortgage and a car and both her and her husband have jobs - in her words, "we have done everything right" - but the money coming into the household was not enough to live on.

The pantry's manager, Mike Scott, said it alarmed him that demand for the centre's food aid keeps growing, including from people in work.

"Every week we're seeing more people coming to join," he said.

"We hear stories of people who can't afford to feed themselves, can't afford to feed their children."

A government statement in response to the report did not address the human rights claims, but defended welfare policy.

"It's misleading to present these findings as representative of England as a whole," said a spokesperson.

"We're helping parents to move into work to give families the best opportunity to move out of poverty."