‘No Amount of Budgeting Can Fix This’: My Day at the Right to Food Commission
Today, I had the privilege of presenting evidence to the Right to Food UK Commission, chaired by Barrie Margetts, Emeritus Professor at the University on Southampton, on the stark realities of food insecurity in the North East. Drawing from Citizens Advice Gateshead data, my submission highlighted ongoing debt crises, negative budgets, and disproportionate impacts on vulnerable groups like children, disabled people and single-parent families.
Commission overview
The Right to Food UK Commission, launched in late 2025, aims to end hunger by 2035 through a road map for a statutory Right to Food law. It is examining the scale and causes of food poverty, regional disparities, and the potential of legal and policy reform to guarantee everyone access to good food. Today’s session in Newcastle focused on lived experience and frontline evidence from organisations working at the sharpest end of the cost of living crisis.
Key evidence highlights
Citizens Advice nationally is still helping around 200,000 people a month with cost-of-living issues, with record numbers now turning to our network for debt advice. Over half of the people we support with debt are in a negative budget, where income simply cannot cover essentials, even after careful budgeting and expert advice. Food bank–related issues reached record levels in 2024, and the profile of people needing charitable food shows higher proportions of men, disabled people and people from global ethnic majority communities compared with our general client base.
Here are just a few examples:
17–33% of children are food insecure and living in the poorest families with a combination of low income, larger family size, high housing and energy costs.
The commission heard evidence today from Vici Richardson CEO of Disability North about the extra costs of disability, limited earning capacity, inadequate benefits. Disabled people experience food insecurity at around double the rate of non-disabled people.
Single parents, with 46% of this group in poverty and experiencing food insecurity. One income stretched over all essentials, high childcare and housing costs
Private renters are amongst the most likely to face negative budgets with high, unstable rents, benefit shortfalls, debt deductions.
People in work are also experiencing food insecurity, with 20–30% of food bank users from working households due to low pay, insecure hours.
Personal reflections
Giving evidence today felt both professionally important and personally emotional. I spend so much time working with spreadsheets, dashboards and briefing papers, but in that committee room every percentage and graph represented a family I know we have spoken to in crisis. Sharing case studies of an asylum-seeking family unable to afford specialist baby formula to meet their babies health needs, a single mother of four sitting in a cold home with no gas, unable to cook for her children and a homeless client with no way to store or cook food brought home just how thin the line is between “getting by” and destitution.
What struck me most was the reaction in the room when we talked about “negative budgets” and problem debt. Once you explain that almost half of our debt clients have less than nothing left after covering essentials, and that no amount of budgeting can fix a structural shortfall, you can feel the conversation shift from individual responsibility to system design. It was important to be honest that our advisers can work miracles in maximising income, but we cannot budget our way out of policies that bake in hardship and that’s hard for our advisers, it’s not why they came into this area of work. They want to make a positive and tangible difference through their work, and most of the time they do, but sometimes it’s impossible.
I was also very aware of who was not in the room. Many of the people most affected by hunger, those with No Recourse to Public Funds, people in precarious work, or parents juggling multiple jobs and caring responsibilities, do not have the time, security or platform to speak in Westminster-style spaces so it was reassuring to hear from the Commission about how they are involving and taking evidence from people with lived experience from within our Region. Part of my reflection today is about the responsibility that comes with being invited to speak on their behalf, and the need to keep checking that the stories and data we share remain rooted in their lived realities, not just our interpretations. It's great the Commission is doing this very thing.
Finally, I left with a mix of hope and urgency. Hope, because commissioners were clearly engaged with the evidence and open to bold ideas like an Essentials Income Guarantee and a cash-first approach to crisis support. Urgency, because our data shows that food bank demand, problem debt and negative budgets have become a “new normal”, and every year we delay meaningful reform is another year in which children grow up hungry in one of the richest countries in the world. And believe me when I say, this isn't just about a meal today or tomorrow, it is quite literally about their futures and the future of our communities and our country.
Recommendations
In my evidence, I emphasised that food banks and charitable support cannot be the foundation of our response to hunger; they are a symptom of a welfare system and labour market that are failing to guarantee the basics. The goal must be to make sure that regular income, from work, social security or a combination of both, is sufficient to cover essentials without people having to skip meals or take on unmanageable debt.
Key recommendations I highlighted included:
Introduce an Essential Income Guarantee in Universal Credit. Build into the benefits system a protected minimum level of support that always covers basic essentials such as food, utilities and basic household costs. Evidence suggests that setting this at a realistic level could lift over 2 million people out of hardship by 2026–27 and reduce the number of households forced into negative budgets. This needs to be accompanied by writing off or restructuring unaffordable government debts deducted from benefits, and by redesigning deductions so they do not push people below a basic subsistence level.
Fix design flaws that drive destitution The five-week wait for a first Universal Credit payment (which I've never really understood) continues to push people into crisis and force them to borrow just to keep food on the table. Reducing or removing this wait, making advances non-repayable where necessary, and reforming the overall benefit cap and housing support would prevent many people from needing a food bank in the first place. Any reform of disability assessments must ensure that people with long-term conditions do not lose vital income, given their much higher risk of food insecurity.
Reduce the cost of essentials, especially housing, energy and food Local Housing Allowance must be unfrozen and linked back to actual rents so that low-income households are not forced to raid food budgets to pay landlords. Targeted energy support and investment in insulation and home energy efficiency are crucial to ending “heat or eat” trade-offs that we hear about daily. On food specifically, there is a strong case for measures that stabilise or reduce the price of healthy staples, alongside strengthening schemes like Healthy Start so that parents can afford fresh food for their children. Food inflation (62%) is unacceptable, and quite literally forcing people into unimaginable situations.
Strengthen crisis support through a permanent, cash‑first local safety net The planned Crisis and Resilience Fund is a vital opportunity to replace patchy, short-term schemes with a more consistent, rights‑based approach. To work, local welfare support must be properly funded, delivered primarily as cash rather than vouchers, easy to access (online, phone, in person) and fast, with decisions in 24–48 hours for emergencies. Crucially, local schemes should be open to people regardless of benefit status, including those with No Recourse to Public Funds, so that nobody is left hungry because of their immigration situation.
Expand and protect Free School Meals and holiday food provision In regions like the North East, where over 30% of children are eligible for Free School Meals, school food is a critical anti-poverty intervention as well as an education policy. Broadening eligibility to include more low-income working families, and making Holiday Activities and Food programmes a permanent feature, would ensure that children have at least one reliable, nutritious meal each day throughout the year. This not only relieves pressure on family budgets, but is also linked to better attendance, concentration and outcomes in school. However, as we think about the right to food we absolutely mustn’t forget about the providers of school meals. They are working on the incredibly slim margins, with many in our region tottering on the brink of liquidation. School budgets are often forced to pick up the gap between funding levels and actual costs, and this can’t be allowed to continue.
Invest in place‑based, dignity‑focused community models I also drew attention to the work at St Chads Community Project Food Market, where food support is offered in a dignified, shop‑like environment and to the partnership we have with the Gateshead Bank. In both cases the provision of food is integrated with advice and support services, improving outcomes and reducing repeat visits. Models like this show how we can move away from emergency parcels towards community‑based, cash‑first and advice‑rich responses that address the root causes of crisis rather than just the symptoms.
Closing
Presenting this evidence today reinforced a simple message: food poverty is not inevitable; it is the predictable outcome of policy choices on income, housing, debt and social security. I’m keen to connect with others working on research, practice or policy to push for a rights‑based approach to food and to embed these recommendations in local and national strategies.
If you’re working in this space, whether in advice services, community projects, local government or academia, I’d really love to hear what you are working on to and to understand how we might align our efforts. Please do reach out or comment with the changes you’d most like to see to make the Right to Food a reality because it really can’t be right that we have so many children in this region going hungry. This isn’t just about a meal today, it’s about their futures.
For more information
To find out more about the work of the Right to Food Commission please visit Right to Food UK Commission — Ian Byrne MP - Working for West Derby.
I'd also encourage you to check out the work of Disability North – Help and advice for disabled people and Tyne & Wear - Citizens UK.
