Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an estimate of the number of foodbanks which (a) do not have enough food to meet demand as on 12 September 2022 and (b) will run out of food in the next three months.

The Government is concerned by the data limitations in this area, and thus from April 2021 we introduced a set of questions into the Family Resources Survey (FRS) to measure and track food bank usage. The first results of these questions are due to be published in March 2023 subject to usual quality assurance. These questions will not tell us how much food is in food banks but will allow us to gauge where people in food security are seeking help and over time will allow is to build a time series on the scale of food bank usage.

Government understands the pressures people are facing with the cost of living. That is why we are introducing the new “Energy Price Guarantee.” This will mean a typical UK household will now pay up to an average £2,500 a year on their energy bill for the next two years from 1 October, saving the average household in Great Britain at least £1,000 a year based on current energy prices from October. This is in addition to over £37bn of Cost of living support announced earlier this year.

Included within this £37bn is an additional £500 million to help households with the cost of essentials, on top of what we have already provided since October 2021, bringing total funding for this support to £1.5 billion. In England this will take the form of an extension to the Household Support Fund backed by £421m, running from 1 October 2022 to 31 March 2023. We will publish new guidance for Local Authorities for this latest extension shortly. The Devolved administrations will receive £79 million through the Barnett formula.