Right To Food National Day of Action

A national day of action is taking place across the UK today in support of the Right To Food campaign to make access to food a legal right for all.

Leaders of the campaign have written to Henry Dimbleby, chair of the National Food Strategy team, ahead of its report to Government next month, urging him to include the Right To Food in their findings and have organised a national Right To Food action day on social media today, Monday 28 June.

Led by Liverpool West Derby MP Ian Byrne and fan activist group Fans Supporting Foodbanks, the Right To Food campaign was launched in November 2020 with the aim of changing the law to make access to food a legal right for all in the UK.

It has achieved considerable support in the last six months.

The Right To Food campaign petition to Parliament set up by Fans Supporting Foodbanks national network in December 2020 gathered more than 53,000 signatures and Ian Byrne MP’s Early Day Motion (EDM) has been signed by 59 Members of Parliament.

The campaign is backed by trade unions including Unite, the Bakers Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU), faith groups, third sector organisations, businesses, community groups and the Daily Mirror national newspaper.

Earlier this year Liverpool became the UK’s first ‘Right To Food City’ and with it the catalyst for many other towns and cities across the country to also back the campaign, including Manchester, Greater Manchester Combined Authority, Liverpool Combined Authority, Rotherham, Totnes, Brighton and Hove, Haringey, St Helens, Newcastle, Portsmouth and Durham. More than twenty towns and cities now formally support the campaign and have declared themselves a Right To Food city/town, with many also having written to Henry Dimbleby to ask for Right To Food legislation to be recommended in the National Food Strategy report to Government.

In March 2021 the Right To Food campaign team made its own submission to the National Food Strategy including five key ‘asks’ which they believe, if adopted by Government, will provide an achievable, tangible and legally binding route out of food poverty for millions of people in the UK.

These are: universal free school meals; community kitchens; reasonable portions in benefits and wages; ensured food security and independent enforcement. You can read the full submission here: https://www.ianbyrne.org/right-to-food

In a letter today to National Food Strategy chair Henry Dimbleby, Ian Byrne MP says: “Our submission to you in March 2021 included five key ‘asks’ which we believe, if adopted by Government, provide an achievable, tangible and legally binding route out of food poverty for millions of people in the UK… I again urge you on behalf of the Right To Food campaign to implement these asks in the National Food Strategy and to start to challenge the unfairness and injustice we see in our nation.”

Today on the National Day of Action supporters of the campaign are posting a photograph of themselves holding an ‘I support the Right To Food’ poster on social media using the #RightToFood campaign hashtag. They are also specifically calling on Government to deliver on the five key asks submitted to the National Food Strategy.

The campaign invites you to join in on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram by posting a photograph of yourself/your team holding a poster that says ‘I / We support the Right To Food’, using the #RightToFood hashtag.