Relief of hunger is a moral obligation of the government

By Hannah Fearn, freelance journalist specialising in social affairs

If a prime minister’s first 100 days are supposed to provide a weather forecast for the rest of their term, then the climate under Keir Starmer looks, well, a little mixed.

On the sunny side, though his popularity bubble was promptly burst by the far-right rioting, tackling the incident played directly to his expertise and strengths. The quick overhaul of planning laws to get social homes built at the speed we need to tackle the crisis was also a fresh spring breeze after 14 years of stagnation.

But there are gathering clouds. Serious questions about poverty won’t go away. For many, the decision to remove the Winter Fuel Payment for low-income pensioners not claiming pension credit was an anathema. The scales are further tipped by the silence over the two-child benefit limit.

We’re still waiting for Rachel Reeves’ first budget, and I remain hopeful that it’ll contain a more comprehensive overhaul of the benefits system that’ll see the cap finally axed. But in the short term, the outlook for Starmer is unsettled.

As readers here will be more than aware, it’s often the housing sector that’s left to pick up the pieces when the state hesitates or retracts. Poverty continues to damage our society. According to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation there are 4.2m households going without essentials and 3.4m who don’t have enough to eat. There are 1.6m working Brits living on below the minimum wage. With rapid inflation and the rising cost of food and energy, the situation is unsustainable.

“As readers here will be more than aware, it’s often the housing sector that’s left to pick up the pieces when the state hesitates or retracts”

A group of housing associations has decided to jump in where the new government hasn’t (yet). Led by Peabody, including a consortium of large London landlords from the G15 group and emergency food providers, the project has committed to ensuring that no social housing tenant should go to bed hungry.

I spoke to Sahil Khan, the project lead at Peabody. He told me that, while housing associations have funded foodbanks and other local anti-poverty projects since their inception, the shared need across London has escalated and now requires a more coordinated approach.

“If someone is in a destitute situation, increasingly housing associations have had to help their tenants by giving them money. We issue people with cash vouchers so they can do a shop or put gas and electric on their meters,” he said. “But where we do fund food insecurity projects, they’re set up in a way that’s dignified and gives choice. If you go to any of the [food] pantries on a Peabody estate there’s an element of choice, there’s a shopping experience. Tenants will contribute something, two or three pounds, and there’s wraparound support there too. The aim is to build mutual support in communities. We’ve got a really good chance that if we work together, we can really make inroads and progress things.”

This service isn’t only necessary, it’s also welcomed by those who use it. It’s brilliant to hear that it should soon be a basic standard of service offered to social tenants in desperate circumstances right across the capital.

But what strikes me is the unfairness of the situation: not only for tenants but also for housing associations – organisations that have also been stripped of their resources over the last decade. Labour is investing in their services, but it’ll take time for the funds to filter through. This food poverty work is urgent.

I remain hopeful that, politically at least, we’re about to enter an Indian Summer. But as Starmer and Reeves together prepare her first budget speech, they shouldn’t fool themselves that this emergency work can last long. Housing associations aren’t the organisations with the broadest shoulders. Relief of hunger is a moral obligation of the government, not a business side hustle.