Oral QuestionTreasury

What fiscal steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help reduce the level of use of food banks by families.

Tabled: 4 March 2026Answered: 10 March 2026

Asked by

Catherine West

LabourHornsey and Friern Barnet

Answering Minister

the Chancellor of the Exchequer

Answer from Hansard

The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Lucy Rigby)

We became inured to the presence of food banks under Tory Governments over the last 14 years, but we should always remember that despite the incredible work done by those who run them, food banks should not need to exist, and this Government are committed to ending mass dependence on food parcels. That is why we have extended free school meals to children in families receiving universal credit and removed the two-child limit, which will lift 450,000 children out of poverty, and—according to the Trussell Trust, as the Chancellor said earlier—will significantly reduce the number of families using food banks.