Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 18 December 2017 to Question 119088, how his Department measures food insecurity.

The Family Food module of the Living Costs and Food Survey (LCFS) is the priority indicator of household food security. It collects information on food expenditure and purchased quantities of food. Over the past 20 years the proportion of household income spent on food by the poorest 20% of households has remained constant at around 16%. In addition, an experiential indicator of household food insecurity (based on US Department of Agriculture methodology) is currently included in the Food Standards Agency’s (FSA) Food and You survey.