Brighton & Hove is joining calls for the government to take action to make access to food a legal right in the Chancellor’s Spring statement.
Last week Brighton & Hove Food Partnership, representing 44 local organisations, called on the government to respond urgently to the cost of living crisis in the March budget. They highlighted how local voluntary groups are struggling to meet demand for their services and the effect of spiralling costs on many people in the city.
The Emergency Food Network has asked for the government to put in place measures now to ease the pressures on services and ensure people can meet their basic needs.
The council is one of the supporters of the UK’s ‘Right to Food’ campaign and signed a declaration to make this a national priority in 2021.
Against a background of increasing levels of food poverty and insecurity, the Right to Food declaration asks for structural and policy changes at a national level to make access to food a guaranteed right.
It includes widening access to free school meals to more students from low-income households, allowing single parents to claim back more of their childcare costs to increase their food security and speeding up new Universal Credit assessments to prevent families getting into greater levels of debt.
Council leader Phélim Mac Cafferty said: “With food prices and the cost of living set to rise even further, it’s more urgent than ever that policies and actions are in place to ease the pressure on people who are struggling to feed themselves and their families as well as the incredible volunteers and services that support them.
“We are pleased to support this call as part of ongoing work, led by Brighton & Hove Food Partnership, to end food poverty and ensure everyone has access to nutritious, healthy and affordable food.”
Vic Borrill, Director of Brighton & Hove Food Partnership, said: “There is no one group that is experiencing poverty. Day in and day out we are seeing people of all ages and backgrounds who are at risk of malnutrition, homelessness, poor educational attainment, mental and physical health breakdown.
“Community food projects such as food banks are run on limited resources and largely by volunteers. They are increasingly concerned that they will be unable to meet the needs of the people coming to them for help. We want to make sure that people experiencing poverty and those supporting them have their voices heard and we need a comprehensive set of measures to increase household income now.”
Last year Brighton & Hove signed the Glasgow Food and Climate Declaration as part of the council’s commitment to tackle the climate emergency and provide fairer access to food through integrated food policies.
These policies enable and support practical action. Local projects like the Surplus Food Network, co-ordinated by Brighton & Hove Food Partnership and part-funded by the council, uses food that would otherwise end up in landfill and provides food for the community, through lunch clubs, soup kitchens and food banks.
Sharing food through the network helps to make the food system fairer, providing food for vulnerable people and saving money for households through less waste.
Brighton & Hove’s ambitious Food Strategy Action Plan is also helping the city transition to a heathy, sustainable and fair food system.
More about Brighton & Hove Food Partnership’s work and its impact.
