More than 9m Britons vulnerable to relying on food handouts

More than 9 million people in the UK experience levels of poverty and hunger so extreme they may have to rely on charity food handouts, according to research.

- Patrick Butler

A report by the charity Trussell found that Labour would fail to deliver its manifesto promise to remove the "moral scar" of food banks unless it tackled low household incomes in this group, which amounted to one in seven people.

There were one million more people in what the report defined as "hunger and hardship" - living on income at least 25% below the relative poverty line - than five years ago, and nearly 3 million more than there were two decades ago. Trussell said the rapid growth of households that regularly struggled to afford food, heating, clothing and other basics had driven food bank use to record levels.

Trussell's chief executive, Emma Revie, said: "It's 2024 and we're facing historically high levels of food bank need. As a society, we cannot allow this to continue. We must not let food banks become the new norm."