Liverpool set to become the first ‘Right To Food city’ in UK
Image description: A photo of the Liver Building in Liverpool. The city is set the become the UK’s first ‘Right to Food city’.
This week a motion will go before Liverpool City Council calling for the ‘Right To Food’ to be incorporated into the Government’s ‘National Food Strategy’, the first independent review of England’s entire food system for 75 years.
The National Food Strategy team is aiming to identify the food system we need to build for the future as well as a plan for how this can be achieved and it next reports to Government in Spring.
The Right To Food campaign, which wants to change the law to make access to food a legal right for all, believes the 11 million people currently living in food poverty in the UK must be at the heart of the National Food Strategy.
Led by Liverpool-based, national grassroots football fan network Fans Supporting Foodbanks and backed in Parliament by Ian Byrne MP for Liverpool West Derby, the Right To Food campaign is seeking to put peoples’ ‘Right To Food’ and Government obligations on food poverty onto a legal footing through a change in legislation.
If the motion is passed at Wednesday’s full council meeting, as it is expected to, Liverpool will become the UK’s first “Right To Food city” to formally back the campaign, with many more towns and cities set to follow soon after.
Image caption: A photo of Ian Byrne, MP for Liverpool West Derby, and Dave Kelly, Chair of Fans Supporting Foodbanks at the mobile food pantry holding a banner that reads #RightToFood.
Dave Kelly, Chair of Fans Supporting Foodbanks which is driving the Right To Food campaign, believes that establishing a legal Right To Food will be life-changing for millions of people.
He says: “Make no mistake, if we can legislate to make access to food a legal right in the UK, it would mean an end to many of the situations that force people into food poverty at present and make Government legally responsible for ensuring its citizens do not go hungry. For example, the five-week wait for Universal Credit would have to go and school children who receive free school meals would have be catered for during the school holidays – without Premiership footballers having to shame the Government into providing for them.”
Kelly believes it is appropriate that Liverpool will be the inaugural ‘Right To Food city’, saying: “Given the city’s history of coming together to look after those who need support, it is no surprise to me that Liverpool is on the verge of becoming the UK’s first ‘Right To Food city’. The people of Liverpool believe in supporting the vulnerable, fighting for change when they believe it is needed and they expect any Government to be held accountable for its actions.”
As Member of Parliament for Liverpool West Derby and one of the original co-founders of Fans Supporting Foodbanks, Ian Byrne MP is all too aware of the perilous situation faced by so many in our communities. He is throwing his weight behind the Right To Food campaign and in December he tabled an Early Day Motion (EDM) in Parliament on Food Insecurity which has secured the support of more than fifty MPs so far: https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/57840.
Byrne says: “From April to October 2020 in Liverpool there were 10,296 Urgent Needs Awards (emergency cash awards to low-income households for essentials such as food and fuel) - an increase of 56% on the same period in 2019/20. Department of Work and Pensions data reports that households on Universal Credit in Liverpool increased from 30,700 in February 2020 to 58,500 by October 2020 – that is a 90.5% increase. And the Trussell Trust reported a massive 81% increase in emergency food parcels from foodbanks in its network during the last two weeks of March 2020 compared with the same period in 2019, including a 122% rise in parcels given to children as the coronavirus pandemic continued to unfold.
“The figures above are simply devastating for one of the richest nations in the world and they highlight the level of inequality in the UK in 2021. It is my belief that this crisis has been born out of political choices and systemic failings over the past four decades which have now reached a tipping point for so many in our communities.
“We need a change in the law to ensure people do not go hungry any longer and to hold the Government to account on their failings. Given how many of our own citizens will benefit from the change in the law we want to achieve, it is entirely fitting that Liverpool becomes the first ‘Right To Food’ city.”
The Right To Food campaign is a national campaign that everyone is invited to be a part of.
There are several ways you can join the campaign:
1. Sign the Parliamentary Petition:
You can sign and share the Parliamentary petition to make access to food a legal right. You can find this online at: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/562838
2. Ask your MP to support Early Day Motion #1251 on Food Insecurity
Ask your MP to sign Ian Byrne MP’s Early Day Motion (EDM) #1251 on Food Insecurity / the Right To Food:
https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/57840
3. Write to the National Food Strategy team
You/your organisation can write to Henry Dimbleby, Chair of the National Food Strategy team, to ask that the National Food Strategy team recommends that the Right To Food be put onto a legislative footing when they report back to Government in Spring. Email them at: foodstrategy@defra.gov.uk
4. Support the Right To Food campaign on social media:
You/your organisation can support and contribute to the #RightToFood campaign on social media. Follow @IanByrneMP and Fans Supporting Foodbanks @SFoodbanks for regular tweets using the #RightToFood hashtag and please add your own too.