Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of reports from the Trussell Trust that foodbanks in areas of full universal credit roll-out have seen a 16.85 per cent average increase in referrals for emergency food.

Reports from the Trussell Trust confirm that there are many reasons and a variety of complex, interacting underlying causes that result in people having to use foodbanks. People using foodbanks do not fit into one simple category.

Universal Credit is helping people into work and we offer advances at the start of the claim so claimants have money to tide them over until their first payment.