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Charities report reveals growing hunger as austerity bites

CHARITIES condemned the government’s assault on the welfare state yesterday after new research found that foodbanks handed out more than 20 million meals last year.

“Cuts to social security since April 2013 have had a severe impact on poor and vulnerable families across the UK,” said the Below the Breadline report by foodbank charity The Trussell Trust, Oxfam and Church Action on Poverty.

“These cuts have been coupled with an increasingly strict and often misapplied sanctions regime — many people needlessly suffer a loss of income through no fault of their own.”

The figure is an increase of 54 per cent in people at serious risk of going hungry when compared with 2012.

Half of current foodbank users have been refused help under new welfare rules.

“Foodbanks provide invaluable support for families on the breadline but the fact they are needed in 21st-century Britain is a stain on our national conscience,” said Oxfam chief executive Mark Goldring.

The report also sheds light on many cases of people living on one meal a day.

“My survival tactic is hot lemon and water and sugar because it stops the hunger pangs,” said East London carer Patricia.

The release coincided with an estimate by the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission that 3.5 million children will live in poverty by 2020.

“The government’s approach falls far short of what is needed to reduce, yet alone end child poverty in our country,” said the commission chair Alan Milburn.

The commission’s report also blamed the Con-Dem coalition, this policies of which are increasingly out of step with the goals of the Child Poverty Act 2010.

According to the statistics, almost 100 per cent of parents would have to be employed in order to reach the established targets while living under the new benefits system.

A  Department of Work and Pensions spokesman claimed that the government is still “committed to our goal of ending child poverty by 2020.”

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