On 17 March 2020, the chancellor Rishi Sunak, made a speech about the government’s intention to help support UK citizens facing the oncoming economic threat of the coronavirus pandemic. “We will support jobs, we will support incomes, we will support businesses and we will help you protect your loved ones,” he said. “We will do whatever it takes.” And yet, if the data on the number of people falling into destitution since then are anything to go by, then these commitments have fallen far short.
As per the definition provided by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), destitution means “going without the essentials we all need to eat, stay warm and dry, and keep clean”. For a country as wealthy as the UK, you might expect this number would be very low. But according to the JRF’s Destitution in the UK 2020 report, more than a million households were destitute in the UK at some point in 2019, a figure representing 2.4 million people. Among them were 550,000 children. On this basis, the JRF calculates that the number of households experiencing destitution in the UK had increased by 35% since 2017, and the number of people experiencing destitution had increased by 54%.
On the face of it, these figures are shocking, but the data was gathered before the Covid-19 outbreak. What is even more concerning is what the report portends for the pandemic’s impact on those perilously close to destitution. Working alongside the Trussell Trust, a charity committed to ending poverty and hunger, which runs food banks and is therefore in many ways on the frontline of the issue, academics from Heriot-Watt University estimate that destitution levels in the UK will approximately double as a result of the pandemic and the associated economic lockdowns, even taking into account the mitigating effects of relevant policy measures (such as the enhancement of various welfare protections).
Almost two years into the pandemic and the Trussell Trust’s chief executive, Emma Revie, says the report was right to sound the alarm. “During the Covid-19 lockdown in spring 2020, food banks in the Trussell Trust network experienced an unprecedented growth in the need for food parcels,” she says.
“People referred to food banks in the Trussell Trust network are a very deprived group: almost everyone meets the definition of being destitute. In early 2020, three-quarters were severely food insecure, and one in five were homeless. The majority experienced two or more types of deprivation.”
Interestingly though, the Trussell Trust’s 2021 State of Hunger report [pdf] observed that the demographic of those visiting food banks had shifted during the pandemic: “During Covid-19, the profile of people referred to food banks changed slightly: in a survey conducted during the summer of 2020 there were relatively more private renters, people born outside of the UK/Europe, people aged between 25 and 44, and couples with children than before the pandemic.”
It goes on to say that the proportion who were furloughed was relatively small at 4% of all people referred to food banks, suggesting that the furlough scheme for those who were able to receive it managed to hold many families out of destitution.
The reasons behind soaring destitution in the UK are manifold. “Within our research, we looked at the number of people who met that criterion of meeting destitution,” says Revie, who attributes at least some of this growth to failures within the social security system. “We know it’s about access to income. The average household income for somebody coming to a food bank after they’ve covered their accommodation costs is just £57 a week – significantly below the average household income of somebody sitting on the poverty line.” Taking this all into account, says Revie, 95% of people coming to food banks in the Trussell Trust’s network are experiencing destitution.
Those likelier to be more vulnerable to destitution, according to the JRF, include young adults, single mothers and those living in the north-east of England. But there are other factors too, such as the five-week wait between applying for universal credit (UC) and receiving it. The Trussell Trust is actively campaigning to end this as it forces people into debt: as people still have to pay bills during this period, the government offers an advance on that first payment, which has to be repaid from subsequent UC payments, therefore leaving people owing money back to the government, locking them into hardship from the outset. Shockingly, almost half (47%) of people surveyed at food banks owed money to the DWP.
Job insecurity is obviously a key factor in pushing people into applying for UC in the first place and has been exacerbated dramatically by the pandemic-enforced lockdowns. According to the Office for National Statistics, the rate of redundancies recorded since the beginning of the pandemic exceeds the highest rate reached during the 2008 to 2009 financial crisis. And though the economy may have started to rebound since the midst of the pandemic, for anyone who has fallen into destitution the long-lasting impacts aren’t easy to bounce back from simply by getting a job.
So what can you do if you find yourself falling into destitution? Revie says to come to a food bank in the Trussell Trust network if you can, where you can access essential items and speak to staff who are trained in helping people to navigate the benefits system. “First of all, you’d be very warmly welcomed,” she says. “We’d sit and have a cup of tea and ensure that you had enough food for yourself and your family and anyone living in your household.” Beyond that, says Revie, they would also be looking to try to get you specialist support and advice to see if you are getting everything in terms of the benefits you’re entitled to.
“We signpost on to a wide, wide array of partner organisations to help with housing or benefits challenges, or for people struggling with their mental health,” she says. “Anything we can do, to walk a little bit on that journey with you, and see if we can provide any support so that if you’ve had to come to a food bank once – which for us, is just indicative of the system having failed – that you won’t have to come back in the future.”
