The festive season can be a time of excess – but not for everyone

This year, the UK’s largest network of food banks has given out 7,000 food parcels every day in December, writes Harriet Williamson

Many food banks saw an unprecedented demand over the festive period (Jeff J Mitchell/Getty)

Many of us will have overindulged at Christmas and spent much of the following week blearily trying to work out what day it was through a haze of turkey sandwiches and leftover roast potatoes.

It is very much seen as a time of excess for those who celebrate it. Plates are piled high with rich food, boxes of chocolates are dipped into and the fizz is open before midday.

However, this isn’t the case for everyone. This year, the UK’s largest network of food banks has given out 7,000 food parcels every day in December. Thousands of vulnerable families are relying on emergency support from organisations like the Trussell Trust to meet their basic nutritional needs.

The UK is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, and yet 14 million people live in poverty, including 4.5 million children, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Poverty means being forced to choose between putting the heating on and putting food on the table. It means shame and anxiety, cold and hunger, feelings of helplessness.

Between 1 April 2020 and 31 March 2021, food banks in the Trussell Trust’s UK network gave out 2.5 million emergency food parcels to those in crisis. This was a 33-per-cent increase on the previous year. In the last five years, the need for the Trussell Trust’s food banks has shot up by 128 per cent.

These figures should make all of us angry – and we get plenty of correspondence to that effect. No one should be going hungry in Britain. No parent should have to go without meals so their kids can eat. Poverty and hunger are political. They are exacerbated by and a result of political choices, cooked up by the people we choose to represent and lead us.

It shouldn’t be seen as “radical” or even particularly left-wing to want a Britain where people aren't under-nourished. It’s about decency and humanity.

You can support the vital work that the Trussell Trust does, but keep in mind that the very existence of food banks is not inevitable.

We have the resources and the skills to build a society where no one needs to rely on an emergency food parcel. We just need the will.

Yours,

Harriet Williamson

Commissioning editor, Voices