The House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee has urged the UK Government to provide £5 million in extra funding to support those struggling to afford sufficient food this winter.
- Letter to the Secretary of State
- Inquiry: COVID-19 and food supply
- Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee
This echoes a call made earlier this year by the Committee in its report on Covid-19 and Food Supply. In a letter from the Committee’s Chair to the Secretary of State, the cross-party group of MPs show support for a FareShare scheme which redistributes surplus food from the supply chain to food charities.
FareShare estimates that the scheme would provide 47 million meals per year to the most vulnerable in society.
Chair of the EFRA Select Committee, Neil Parish MP, said: “We face a tough winter with many businesses closing and incomes reducing or disappearing, pushing people into food poverty.
“The Government must make sure that the most vulnerable members of society have access to enough healthy food. To waste food in the supply chain at such a time would be abhorrent, and this grant would provide a huge boost to the invaluable work of charities redistributing surplus food to those who most need it.”