One person out of every seven is facing food poverty right now in the UK. Nearly half (47%) of all households experiencing food insecurity include a child under 16. One in five people using a foodbank in the Trussell Trust network comes from a working household and universal credit payments are not enough to guarantee household essentials. The main driver behind these shocking figures is the cost of living crisis which shows no sign of slowing down. 

We are a group of Christian churches in the Wythenshawe area of Manchester, and we see every day how the cost of living crisis is affecting our communities. We believe that it's time for the government to take urgent action on food poverty in the UK by implementing three urgent measures:

1. Scrap two-child limit for universal credit payments;
2. Introduce an automatic review of Universal Credit payments to bring them into line with the real cost of living whenever inflation rises above 5%;
3. Extend the provision of free school meals for eligible children to all school holidays.