Cost of living: Record one million emergency food bank parcels expected to be handed out this winter
More than one million emergency parcels are expected to be distributed by food banks this winter due to an “unprecedented need” for help, a charity has warned.
The Trussell Trust network, which supports more than 1,300 food bank centres across the UK, has forecast that more than 600,000 people will rely on food banks from December this year until next February.
That will mean almost 100,000 more emergency food parcels are required compared to the same period last year, when a total of 904,000 were handed out.
Last winter saw 220,000 children supported by emergency meals from the Trussell Trust network, with 225,000 people using a food bank for the first time.
And the charity believes the numbers will continue to rise in the run up to Christmas and into early next year, as many people hit crisis point.
One in seven people in the UK are forced to go hungry because they don’t have enough money to feed themselves, Trussell Trust chief executive, Emma Revie, said.
“We don’t want to spend every winter saying things are getting worse, but they are,” she warned.
Food is desperately needed to make up the emergency parcels, together with money to pay for a shortfall in donations, Ms Revie said.
“Every year we are seeing more and more people needing food banks, and that is just not right,” she added, vowing: “We won’t stand by and let this continue.”
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Universities operating food banks
“Together, we have roots into hundreds of communities and while someone facing hunger can’t change the structural issues driving the need for food banks on their own, thousands of us coming together can,” Ms Revie said.
“We must end hunger across the UK so that no one needs a food bank to survive.”
A survey of 282 Trussell Trust food banks over the last three months showed 93% had to buy extra food to meet demand.
Almost a third (32%) admitted they were worried about maintaining their current service levels as winter approaches.
Warehouse staff at a Trussell Trust foodbank in Southend, Essex
Natasha Copus, project manager at the Southend foodbank, said they were experiencing ‘unprecedented’ demand
‘We face winter with trepidation’
Natasha Copus, project manager at the Trussell Trust food bank in Southend, Essex, said their centres were experiencing “unprecedented need”.
“We have had to buy around half the food we give out already this year and that is not even with the added pressure of heating and energy that people will face this winter.
“It is with trepidation that we face the next six months of being there for people,” she added, as she called on the local community to offer their support.
Warehouse manager of the Trussell Trust Southend foodbank, Simon Carter
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Meanwhile Daniel Kebede, the general secretary of the National Education Union, reiterated calls for free school meals to be extended to all pupils to fight poverty and child hunger, which have “tremendous social and moral costs”.
Food banks preparing to support bigger numbers of people is a “damning sign” of the government’s failure to support people during the cost-of-living crisis, he said.
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‘Why are four million children now in poverty?’
‘Poverty does not discriminate’
Trussell Trust food banks provided a lifeline for education worker Aneita after a problem with her tax credits saw her “suddenly plunged into a financial nightmare”.
“I remember sitting in the waiting room, with my daughter, waiting to be given a food parcel,” she said.
“I was holding back my tears, not wanting my daughter to see me upset, and thinking, ‘how has it got to this?’.”
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Now Aneita is calling for an end to food banks.
“We need change – a real living wage, benefits that reflect the cost of living, more social housing.
“Poverty does not discriminate – it can and will single you out through no fault of your own.”
Business
Asian stock markets tumble – with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index suffering worst fall for 28 years
Asian stock markets have fallen dramatically amid escalating fears of a global trade war – as Donald Trump called his tariffs “medicine” and showed no sign of backing down.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index of shares closed down 13.2% – its biggest drop since 1997, while the Shanghai composite index lost 7.3% – the worst fall there since 2020.
Taiwan’s stock market was also hammered, losing nearly 10% on Monday, its biggest one-day drop on record.
Elsewhere, Japan’s Nikkei 225 lost 7.8%, while London’s FTSE 100 was down 4.85% by 9am.
Tariffs latest – FTSE falls after Asian markets tumble
US stock market futures signalled further losses were ahead when trading begins in America later.
At 4am EST, the S&P 500 futures was down 4.93%, the Dow Jones 4.32% and the Nasdaq 5.33%.
Markets are reacting to ongoing uncertainty over the impact of President Trump’s tariffs on goods imported to the US, which he announced last week.
A screen showing the Hang Seng index in central Hong Kong. Pic: Reuters
Speaking on Air Force One on Sunday, Mr Trump said foreign governments would have to pay “a lot of money” to lift his tariffs.
“I don’t want anything to go down. But sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something,” he said.
The US president said world leaders were trying to convince him to lower further tariffs, which are due to take effect this week.
“I spoke to a lot of leaders, European, Asian, from all over the world,” Mr Trump told reporters.
“They’re dying to make a deal. And I said, we’re not going to have deficits with your country.
“We’re not going to do that because to me, a deficit is a loss. We’re going to have surpluses or, at worst, going to be breaking even.”
Mr Trump, who spent much of the weekend playing golf in Florida, posted on his Truth Social platform: “WE WILL WIN. HANG TOUGH, it won’t be easy.”
President Trump believes his policy will make the US richer, forcing companies to relocate more manufacturing to America and creating jobs.
However, his announcement has shocked stock markets, triggered retaliatory levies from China and sparked fears of a global trade war.
US customs agents began collecting Mr Trump’s baseline 10% tariff on Saturday.
Higher “reciprocal” tariffs of between 11% and 50% – depending on the country – are due to kick in on Wednesday.
Investors and world leaders are unsure whether the US tariffs are here to stay or a negotiating tactic to win concessions from other countries.
Richard Flax, chief investment officer at wealth manager Moneyfarm, said: “I guess there was some hope over the weekend that maybe we would see this as part of the start of a negotiation.
“But the messages that we’ve so far seen suggest that the President Trump is comfortable with the market reaction and that he’s going to continue on this course.
Goldman Sachs has raised the odds of a US recession to 45%, joining other investment banks that have also revised their forecasts.
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In the UK, Sir Keir Starmer has promised “bold changes” and said he would relax rules around electric vehicles as British carmakers deal with a new 25% US tariff on vehicles.
The prime minister said “global trade is being transformed” by President Trump’s actions.
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KPMG has warned tariffs on UK exports could see GDP growth fall to 0.8% in 2025 and 2026.
The accountancy firm said higher tariffs on specific categories, such as cars, aluminium and steel, would more than offset the exemption on pharmaceutical exports, leaving the effective tariff rate around 12%.
Yael Selfin, chief economist at KPMG UK, said: “Given the economic impact that tariffs would cause, there is a strong incentive to seek a negotiated settlement that diminishes the need for tariffs.
“The UK automotive manufacturing sector is particularly exposed given the complex supply chains of some producers.”
Traders called this morning a complete bloodbath as the UK’s FTSE 100 joined world indexes in turning red as uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs continued to batter stock markets.
Across Asia and Europe, hundreds of billions have been wiped off companies’ values, particularly in banking and manufacturing.
The cause is not just the imposition of those tariffs (the largest the US has inflicted since the 1930s) and the very obvious drag this will have on global trade and growth, but also the uncertainty of ‘what next?’.
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Investors cannot work out if the Trump administration is genuinely wedded to tariffs on this scale, on the proviso that they will help re-shore companies and millions of jobs to the United States.
They don’t know if they are permanent or merely part of a negotiating tactic to address trade imbalances, and for America to use its economic heft to strike better deals.
If Mr Trump is open to deals (the first test comes later in a meeting with the Israeli prime minister), markets will calm, even if the midst of uncertainty hasn’t fully cleared.
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Time to change tactics with Trump?
However, if this is a genuine rewiring of global trade and the end of globalisation as we know it, markets and economies will continue to get battered.
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As one Trump supporter, billionaire Bill Ackman – who opposes the tariffs – put it, President Trump has launched a “global economic war against the whole world” that will usher in an “economic nuclear winter.”
It’s time for all of us to buckle up.
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