Universal Credit: Food Banks
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the APPG on Ending the Need for Food Banks' call for evidence into how the level of support offered by Universal Credit is decided, what recent assessment he has made of trends in the level of food bank usage by people in receipt of Universal Credit.
Answered by Dame Diana Johnson
We measure whether a household has used a food bank in the past 30 days or 12 months in the Family Resources Survey.
In 2024/25, 16% (1.8 million) of individuals in families on Universal Credit were in households that had used a food bank in the last 12 months. This is a decrease of 1 percentage point compared to 2023/24, although growth in families in receipt of Universal Credit means that the count of individuals in families on Universal Credit who lived in households accessing a food bank in the last 12 months increased by 0.2 million compared to 2023/24. For further trends, refer to the table below:
You can find individual level statistics on food bank use and associated statistics (e.g. food insecurity) in the annual Households Below Average Income statistics publication: Households below average income (HBAI) statistics – GOV.UK and on Stat-Xplore.
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