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Hackney Right to Food Meeting - Wednesday, 29th January 2025

Writer's picture: Chesca WaltonChesca Walton

with Cllr Sarah Young, Cllr Chris Kennedy


Attendance

In January 2023, the Council passed a motion on the Right to Food (shared below). Two years on, the Right To Food Hackney Campaign invited Cllr Chris Kennedy, Cabinet member for Health, Adult Social Care, Voluntary Sector and Culture, and Cllr Sarah Young, Cabinet member for Climate Change, Environment and Transport, to provide an update on the progress the Council has made in implementing the motion. Members of the public were asked to submit their questions in advance for the Councillors, and these were collated and shared ahead of the meeting.


Question asking for an update on progress made to date

  • Cllr Kennedy started by outlining the focus for the Council had been eliminating school and holiday hunger for children.

  • This has been done for primary-age children through the free school meals offer from the London Mayor and the household support fund, which provides financial support during the school holidays.

  • Some schools have been struggling to afford the additional costs of providing meals for children with additional needs; Hackney had applied to the Greater London Authority (GLA) for additional funding at the start of the year and will distribute them to schools when available.

  • The Councillor also explained that going forward, funding for Lunch Clubs would be accessible to all Clubs in Hackney going forward, rather than just the 12 hubs in the Network. 


Question regarding the impact thus far on the Tackling Food Poverty in Education initiative

  • Cllr Young explained the Council had been investing time and funds into the project.

  • They had worked on achieving economies of scale through bringing together schools’ procurement processes, which had the additional benefit of improving the quality and seasonality of produce.

  • There is also increased work being done on improving the take up of free school meals, which has been a persistent issue and one that schools are well aware of.

  • Furthermore, the Council has been trialling camping ReLondon, to reduce waste, and Eat Like a Londoner.

  • Cllr Gilbert Smyth has been championing Fair Trade produce, through activities such as the Sustainable Fair Trade pizza competition.

  • Finally, the Council has made a £300,000 donation to the Chefs in Schools campaign and outlined there should be EcoSchools champions in each school.  


Question regarding Sustain Good Food report

  • Hackney ranks #13 with a score of 69% in the most recent ‘Good Food Local’ report from Sustain. While Hackney has made improvements on the score, which only achieved 38% in 2014, there is clearly still work to do.

  • It was agreed this is a cross-cutting issue that touches many Council departments and requires a joined-up solution. More information can be found out about the report and what it covers here.


Question regarding the use of public land to promote food growing

  • Cllr Young explained that a Right to Grow motion draft had been submitted and would be placed on the agenda for the next available slot at Full Council (the place where motions are approved or rejected).

  • They explained that the motion had taken longer than expected to draft due to the complexities of identifying which land is publicly owned and is safe to use.

  • The Councillor also stated that Right to Grow is already permitted on Council-owner housing estates.

  • The take-up of this is currently small, but they are looking to expand. 


If people wish to get involved in directly relieving food poverty on the ground, the best advice is to get involved in the Hackney Food Poverty Network, which is run out of Hackney Foodbank. The Network shares information on available free food, reducing waste and increasing access to seasonable healthy food. 


Cllr Kennedy explained that the Council has not yet started the commitment to write to the National Government with its asks, however it would be happy to, with input on framing the asks from Right to Food Hackney. 


The Right to Food Hackney campaign was set-up with the aim of ending food poverty food for good. The Councillors agreed this is an issue that sits with both environmental justice and social justice and that the Council wants to move to a world where there is no longer a need for the mitigation activities described above. It hopes to work with other Labour-run Councils and the Mayor of London to put pressure on the National Labour Government. 


Sustainable Hackney’s Food and Food Growing workstream would love to get as many people involved in the work of securing healthy, sustainable food for everyone in Hackney. If you would like to find out more, please join the Food Group on our website.




Right to Food motion passed at Full Council meeting on 25th January 2023

This Council notes that:

  • The last decade has seen a staggering rise in food poverty across the UK, with millions of people going hungry in the UK and food bank use spiking since the start of the pandemic.

  • In April 2020 alone, Hackney's food bank fed 1,803 people (an 186% increase on the previous year) with over 400 of them being children.

  • During the height of the pandemic and first lockdown, the Council was delivering 1,500 food parcels per week, on average.

  • During school holidays and half terms, Hackney Council supports families of more than 20,000 children on low incomes with help to buy food and pay bills.

  • Some data suggests that as many as 56,000 adults are missing meals and 22,000 using a food bank in Hackney as a result of the cost of living crisis.

  • Department of Work and Pensions statistics show that the number of people in Hackney dependent on Universal Credit has risen from 13,000 in 2020 to 32,000 in 2022.

  • Poverty in our borough and across London has been exacerbated by the pandemic and this Conservative Government’s failure to tackle the current cost of living crisis and target support to those who most need it.

  • The ‘Right to Food’ campaign argues that the millions pushed into food poverty should be central to this strategy.

  • The establishment of a council-wide Free School Meals task force, aimed at providing a hot meal to as many children in poverty as possible.


Council believes that:

  • These figures are devastating for a rich country like the UK and reflect the fact that twelve years of Tory austerity have left too many people below the breadline.

  • Enshrining the Right to Food in law would clarify government obligations on food poverty and would introduce legal avenues to hold public bodies accountable for failing to prevent people from going hungry in the fifth largest economy in the world.


Council resolves to:

  • Declare Hackney a Right to Food borough and campaign for the Right to Food to be adopted at a national level.

  • Ask the Mayor to write to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs urging the Government to:

    • Bring forward legislation to enshrine the Right to Food in law, clarifying the government’s obligation to protect people from food poverty and introducing legal avenues to hold government bodies accountable for violations.

    • Create a national network of community kitchens including community use of school kitchens.

    • Implement a policy of Universal Free School Meals.

    • Promote access to public land suitable for community food growing.

    • Strengthen Hackney’s Food Poverty and Insecurity Action Plan to address the worsening impact of the cost of living crisis to support the borough’s poorest and most vulnerable families.

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