Food insecurity isn’t always a food issue, and framing it as one is problematic

By Dr Hannah Lambie-Mumford

Household food insecurity has become an increasingly high-profile food policy issue in recent years. It affects approximately 20 per cent of the population and the increased risks of household food insecurity brought about by COVID-19 and the pandemic response have been widely researched and reported. The White Paper response to the National Food Strategy provides an unmissable opportunity to introduce a step change in government responses to household food insecurity in England. 

It will be important for the White Paper to acknowledge that access to food isn’t always an issue of ‘food’ or even the ‘food system’. Framing it as such can be problematic, especially when food insecurity driven by low income is seen to be a ‘food problem’ to be solved by the provision of food or food education. 

The White Paper should set out a comprehensive understanding of household food security and the ways in which the government response will leverage all relevant policy areas including social security. This could be done through formalising and making transparent a cross-government group with responsibility and accountability for coordinating a policy response across government. 

The White Paper should outline explicit plans in three areas of particular importance to food insecurity; 

1) implementing processes for inclusive as well as evidence-based policy design

There are trends towards increasingly participatory, inclusive, and evidence-based approaches to food policy making, and important examples of this can be seen in relation to Environmental Land Use Management policy design as well as policy-facing research on experiences of food access issues during the COVID-19 pandemic. It would be good to see the White Paper engage critically with ideas of inclusive policy design and present a plan for how to create these processes in a way that is robust and meaningful and that sit alongside other kinds of data and analysis.

2) rethinking crisis support and the need for food banks

Since the 2010s England has seen a significant rise in food charity assistance, including increasingly widespread food bank provision (the provision of food parcels to people experiencing an income crisis). Food banks were also a key feature of the response to household food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic. The further intensification of this provision over the pandemic could have lasting repercussions for the embeddedness of food banks in local welfare systems. 

The Scottish Government has recently published a draft plan for ending the need for food banks as a primary response to food insecurity which is currently out for consultation. The White Paper presents an opportunity for the government in England to set out a plan for a similar consultation and policy response, re-thinking crisis support and focusing policy instead on ensuring and protecting adequate household incomes.

3) improving access to school meals

School food has a critical role to play within a comprehensive suite of policies designed to tackle food insecurity. This was made clear by the significance of free school meal replacements during Covid-19. The National Food Strategy makes a compelling case for increasing the eligibility for free school meals. The White Paper is an opportunity for the government to outline a more ambitious set of policies for provision of healthy food to all children in school settings including extended universal lunch provision, healthy snacks and breakfast. 

Our UK-wide research on responses to food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the increasing differences in food policy responses across the four nations of the United Kingdom. In addition to the above, it would be beneficial for the White Paper to set out how policy making in England will learn from practice elsewhere, for example, the Welsh Government’s school breakfast entitlement or the Scottish Government’s Scottish Welfare Fund. 

It is vital that the White Paper leads to the development of joined-up, evidence-based policy. This should include plans for ongoing food security monitoring including through the Family Resources Survey and Food and You survey, as well as plans for more systematic large-scale evaluations of food access interventions. We also want to see clear plans for how these data and insights will be used to develop policy responses across all relevant government departments.