Government told to improve response to Fans Supporting Foodbanks’ “Right To Food” petition by cross-party group of MPs

This week the House of Commons Petitions Committee reviewed the Government’s response to our Right To Food petition and decided that “the response did not directly address the request of the petition.”

The Petitions Committee is a cross-party group of MPs which oversees the petitions system, and it has now written to the Government to ask for an improved response, which will be published on the Parliamentary petitions website once available.

The Fans Supporting Foodbanks petition has now received almost 46,000 signatures and can be viewed here, along with the Government’s initial response dated 1 March: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/562838

Image description: A photo showing the Fans Supporting Foodbanks petition with 46,034 signatures

The Right To Food campaign is a national campaign led by the Fans Supporting Foodbanks national network and in Westminster by Liverpool West Derby MP Ian Byrne, who is an original co-founder of Fans Supporting Foodbanks. 

Late last year Ian tabled an Early Day Motion (EDM) in Parliament on Food Insecurity which has secured the support of fifty-nine MPs so far: https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/57840. 

In January Liverpool became the UK’s first “Right To Food city” when a motion was unanimously passed by Liverpool City Council to formally back the campaign and call for the ‘Right To Food’ to be incorporated into the Government’s ‘National Food Strategy’ and subsequently to become law. 

There are now more than twenty Right To Food towns, cities and boroughs in the UK, including Conservative-controlled Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Wigan, Rotherham, Stockport, St Helens, Wirral, Newcastle, Brighton, Haringey with more to follow.

The National Food Strategy is the first independent review of England’s entire food system for 75 years, led by British businessman and cookery writer Henry Dimbleby. It next reports to Government in Spring this year and the Right To Food campaign wants the 11 million people currently living in food poverty in the UK to be placed at the heart of its strategy. 

Support for the campaign has been wide-ranging. In February, Bishop of Liverpool Paul Bayes strongly backed the campaign, urging churches and Christians across Liverpool to sign the petition and encouraging them to speak out and hold Government to account. 

Liverpool Law Society also expressed support for the campaign. Town and city councils, religious bodies, trade unions and campaign groups who support the Right To Food campaign have also written to Dimbleby, asking for Right To Food legislation to be recommended in the National Food Strategy report to Government.

Dave Kelly, Co-founder and Chair of the Fans Supporting Foodbanks national network, said: “At 10,000 signatures, a petition on the UK Government and Parliament site gets a written response from Government. The response to our Right To Food petition did not come until the petition had more than 40,000 signatures and that response did not address the specifics of our petition. It is right that the Petitions Committee has done its job in scrutinising the Government’s reply and found it wanting and we now eagerly await a much-improved response from Government.”

Ian Byrne MP said: “The objective of the Right To Food campaign is to introduce legislation that will guarantee an end to hunger and vastly improve the quality of life and life expectancy of millions of people currently experiencing food poverty in the UK. Ultimately this campaign’s goal is to protect life. 

“With 46,000 people so far having signed the Right To Food petition, and with councils, religious bodies and trade unions around the country backing the campaign, the Government needs to take it extremely seriously.

“I am pleased that the Petitions Committee has carried out the due diligence on the Government’s response to the petition that such a vital campaign merits.”