Food banks are vital for the poor – and state inaction and coronavirus stockpiling is putting them under threat

Editorial: Further action from the government is required to help thwart stockpilers. It’s the best way to ensure there will be more food for everyone, especially those who need it most

Football fans donate to a food bank in London (BPI/Rex)

The pressure on food banks is one of the first holes opening up in British society’s defences against the economic firestorm caused by the coronavirus pandemic. As we report today, charities are warning that food banks are running low because of increased demand and dwindling supplies.

If Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak are to make good on their fine words about our “capacity for compassion” in our “collective national effort”, this is something they need to act on urgently.

There are, of course, other urgent priorities: income protection for freelance and casual workers is needed to put them on the same footing as employees, for example, to prevent them falling through the cracks and needing food banks.

But there are already too many people turning to food banks, and many charities report that the supply of donations from the public on which they rely is drying up.

The same message that George Eustice, the food and rural affairs secretary, delivered to shoppers against stockpiling needs to go out loud and clear: please continue to donate to food banks – other people need food too.

Many individuals, charities and companies are stepping up. The Co-op today announced that it is donating £150,000-worth of food each week to food banks over the next 10 weeks. We need to see other food retailers follow this example.

As Mr Eustice rightly said, we have enough food as a country to feed everyone, but hoarders and the sudden increase in financial hardship mean that it is not allocated fairly.

Retailers should be encouraged to try innovative ways of discouraging hoarders. A Danish supermarket tried to deter people from buying more hand sanitisers than they needed by charging higher prices for second and subsequent purchases. A “two for the price of three” policy on goods sought out by panic-buyers might be easier for shops to enforce than simple rationing.

If the stockpilers can be thwarted, there will be more food for everyone, including the food banks.

But further action from the government is required. In addition to the increases in universal credit and working tax credit levels the chancellor has announced, the benefits sanctions regime that has driven so many people to food banks in the first place should be suspended for at least as long as the income support measures are in place.

This is, as the chancellor said on Friday, a test of our decency as a nation. We have to control the coronavirus outbreak; we have to save as much as we can of the economy; but in so doing we have to protect the poorest and most vulnerable first.