![Inflation pushes record number of Britons into food banks Inflation pushes record number of Britons into food banks](https://media.lesechos.com/api/v1/images/view/66447a70bd462265482b1ddc/1280x720/01101059898354-web-tete.jpg)
Inflation is falling in the United Kingdom, but not the use of food banks. The activity of the Trussel Trust, the main network of British food banks, has reached a record level over the last twelve months, according to its annual report published This Wednesday.
A total of 3.1 million packages were distributed between April 2023 and March 2024, a sign that the “cost of living crisis” the country is going through will have lasting effects. “This is the highest level of parcels distributed in a single year (…) and represents a shocking 94% increase compared to five years ago,” the charity said in a statement.
65% of its aid concerns homes with children. Attendance by families has increased by 34% in one year, that of retirees, another vulnerable population category, is up 27%.
What’s more, a large proportion of the people helped had never visited a food bank before. There were 655,000 of them in total last year who used aid from its network for the first time. This is 40% more than five years ago, underlines the organization.
Debt maturities
The Trussel Trust is not alone in sounding the alarm about the effect of inflation on less fortunate households. IFAN, an organization representing nearly 200 independent food banks, said last month that 70% of its members were seeing an increase in need, and almost all saw the arrival of people who had never previously needed food. ‘help.
Citizens Advice, another leading charity, says it has advised more than 110,000 households unable to meet their debt payments in the first quarter. A level that remains high, while energy bills have fallen under the effect of the drop in gas prices.
11%
inflation The level reached in the United Kingdom in October 2022
But prices of consumer goods have not fallen in the UK. It is only the rise in prices that slowed down, to 3.2% in March, after reaching a record of more than 11% in October 2022. It particularly affected food goods, for which prices rose to a rate of up to 19% in March 2023, one of the highest increases in Europe.
Higher inflation
Many factors have been put forward to explain why inflation has been higher in the United Kingdom, such as labor shortages, heavy dependence on food imports or regulation of the energy sector. Still, the poorest have been disproportionately affected to the extent that they devote a higher share of their budget to basic necessities.
Another aggravating element of the cost of living crisis across the Channel was the rise in mortgage rates. In the United Kingdom, households only borrow at a fixed rate for a limited period of two to five years. They must then renegotiate their credit at market conditions.
According to data from the Bank of England, some 5 million borrowers were in this situation between the start of the rate rise in 2021 and the end of 2023. And 1.6 million are expected to do so over the course of the year. of the year 2024. These credit renegotiations resulted on average in an increase in monthly payments of 240 pounds per month (280 euros).
Rising rents
The poorest are less often the owners of their homes, but they may have suffered increases in their rent if their landlord has passed on the increase in the cost of their property loan. The increase in rents thus reached 9.2% over one year in March 2024, an increase not observed since the ONS (National Statistical Office) began publishing these figures in 2015.
In this context, the British government has put in place aid for the most disadvantaged. But these support systems must gradually disappear, like the local authority support fund (Household Support Fund). The Trussel Trust is calling for this aid to be extended, because “food banks are not the answer” to these difficulties, according to its executive director, Emma Revie.