Increasing number of people in United Kingdom go hungry because of price spikes

Amna Nawaz:

A winter of discontent is coming for the United Kingdom.

Today, the first in what will be weeks of nationwide strikes began across multiple professions, from ambulance crews to border officers, all in protest of skyrocketing living costs. And as the days get colder, many are faced with a terrible choice, heat the home or feed the family.

From Whitehawk, one of the poorest districts of Brighton on the South Coast, special correspondent Malcolm Brabant reports.

Malcolm Brabant:

Sue Mechen is cooking up 300 hearty meals. Her kitchen is at the vanguard of the fight against hunger in this social housing complex and beyond, as millions of Britons are forced to cut back on life's essentials, food and warmth.

Sue Mechen, Chef, East Brighton Food Cooperative:

A hundred percent it's cooked with love. And it's made for these people that really, really are what I call the forgotten people. People don't care about them, but we do. And that's the main thing.

Speaker:

You have tasted, mother.

(LAUGHTER)

Malcolm Brabant:

Janet Conan's nonprofit provides home deliveries, because the local authority can no longer afford to run the service.

What's your assessment of how bad the cost of living crisis is?

Janet Conan, Joint CEO, East Brighton Food Cooperative:

Pretty bad. It's dire. There's just so many things. You can't even have your heating on. You have got to — because, do I eat, do I put the heating on?

And I'm the same. Like, I haven't got my heating on that much.

Malcolm Brabant:

Food price rises have been the sharpest they have been for more than 40 years.

And this element of inflation hits the poorest hardest, because, proportionately, they spend more of their income on food than the better off.

Single mother Natasha Bell is heading for a handout. Once a music business executive, she fell on hard times and into the red. A nonprofit, Christians Against Poverty, help to get debt collectors off her back. Despite working part-time, Bell is reliant on food banks and the advice of debt coach Neil Avard.

Neil Avard, Debt Coach, Christians Against Poverty:

Because you have two kids, is that right?

Natasha Bell, Food Bank Client:

Two.

Neil Avard:

Two.

Natasha Bell:

One is 11 and one is 14.

Neil Avard:

Yes. Yes. How do you see things like Christmas coming up?

Natasha Bell:

To be fair, I'm dreading it.

Malcolm Brabant:

How desperate would you say the situation is?

Neil Avard:

I can't even imagine how some of these people survive week to week. We could always blame the economic situation. We can blame the war in Europe.

They're not going to go away anytime soon.

Natasha Bell:

I have just popped in to get a couple of bits, if that's all right.

Neil Avard:

Of course it is. I mean…

Natasha Bell:

Just the basics.

Malcolm Brabant:

Natasha Bell isn't alone. A recent survey showed that, if most working Britons lost their jobs, they would survive financially for only 19 days.

Demand for food banks is up 40 percent this year, and many are struggling, because donations are down.

What does it feel like sort of going to a food bank?

Natasha Bell:

Embarrassing. It's embarrassing.

When I first started going, I'd be in a queue and kind of like looking at the floor, because I didn't really want anyone to see me. And then I realized that quite a lot of people I know have started using the food bank. It's not quite so embarrassing, and I don't — I don't care anymore that people know I go to a food bank.

Malcolm Brabant:

What sort of differences it make to you?

Natasha Bell:

Really big difference. Like, your real kind of staples, like pasta, washing powder, washing up liquid, bleach, shower gel, they shouldn't really be luxuries, but they are. That's the sort of kind of, like, basic stuff that they give me. It's not like they're giving away lobster or fois gras.

Malcolm Brabant:

It isn't just the poor who are drowning.

Those in the middle-income bracket are running faster to stand still or even go backwards.

Britain's recent financial turbulence pushed mortgage interest rates to their highest level in 14 years.

Sam Murphy, Mortgage Medics:

I think a lot of families are genuinely terrified. If they're looking at increases of over $1,000 per month, U.K. equivalent, then I think they just can't find that money. They don't know where they're going to find it from.

Malcolm Brabant:

Sam Murphy's consultancy is called Mortgage Medics. But, in this climate, there's no available cure.

Sam Murphy:

The typical mortgage payment might be about $2,500 a month. And a lot of people, when they're coming to the end of their deals at the moment, they're looking at their payments going up by 40, 50, 60 percent, some even as much as doubling.

Malcolm Brabant:

As he tried to balance Britain's books, Treasury Chief Jeremy Hunt targeted middle-income and wealthier households with the highest taxes since World War II, fully aware that his budget would send living standards plunging to record lows.

Jeremy Hunt, British Chancellor of the Exchequer: There is a global energy crisis, a global inflation crisis and a global economic crisis. But the British people are tough, inventive and resourceful.

Malcolm Brabant:

Some of the $67 billion hole in Britain's finances was created by the fiscal mismanagement of conservative Premier Liz Truss, kicked out after just six weeks.

The cost of government borrowing and imports shut up. But there's another significant reason why there's a shortfall, Britain's decision to leave the European Union, its biggest trading partner.

Michael Gasiorek, Sussex University:

Independent empirical work suggests that, as a result of Brexit, U.K. GDP is of the order of 3 to 5 percent lower than it would have been otherwise.

Malcolm Brabant:

Professor Michael Gasiorek is director of the U.K. Trade Policy Observatory.

Michael Gasiorek:

Economically, we are taking a hit. And there's no doubt that we are taking your head. But there are political reasons for wanting to make that decision which has to do with sovereignty. So it becomes a tradeoff.

Malcolm Brabant:

Recent suggestions that Britain might seek a closer relationship with Europe have been dismissed by Rishi Sunak, the country's third prime minister in the past six months.

Rishi Sunak, British Prime Minister:

I believe in Brexit. And I know that Brexit can deliver and is already delivering enormous benefits and opportunities for the country.

Janet Cronin:

I think Britain's very broken. I think it's a banana republic. It's not all about business. And business — it's not this trickle down. It doesn't trickle to anywhere. It trickles into the yard or holiday or a speedboat.

So, I don't know. It's not trickling down to us having like a fantastic kitchen.

Malcolm Brabant:

To serve people like former bodybuilder and window cleaner Dave Blythe, whose leg was amputated four years ago because of a blocked artery.

The meals he receives keep him from joining more than a million British seniors, said to be wasting away because of hunger.

Dave Blythe, Meal Recipient:

It's fairly depressing where I have worked all my life, to actually rely on people to give you food, it doesn't make you feel too good.

Malcolm Brabant:

The kitchen's co-founder, Bryan Coyle, has launched a nationwide campaign to compel local authorities to fund meal deliveries to the vulnerable.

Bryan Coyle, Joint CEO, East Brighton Food Cooperative:

Open two pallets. There you go. There you go.

We have now got a situation in England where over a million over 65-year-olds in this country are suffering from malnutrition. That's quite a shocking statistic in a country which is the United Kingdom.

Janet Cronin:

Hi, Dan. Here's your dinner. Here's your dinner today. We have got beautiful…

Speaker:

Lovely. Thank you very much.

Janet Cronin:

And will tomorrow as well.

Malcolm Brabant:

Charles Sadler is collecting a food parcel for himself and six neighbors.

Charles Sadler, Meal Recipient:

I have been getting food here for quite a while.

Malcolm Brabant:

What would happen to you if you didn't get this meal? I mean, what sort of difference does it make to you?

Charles Sadler:

Well, it stop you from going hungry. But I'm blessed, OK?

Malcolm Brabant:

Across town, debt coach Neil Avard delivering a welfare package to someone who is housebound. He believes many people have cut back right to the bone.

Neil Avard:

You can budget and get your expenditure right down. But I'm now coming to a point where I'm finding, actually, no, you're in negative expenditure. And you have cut down or cut back on everything. Now that's going to be a big problem, unless the government steps in with more help for people with heating grants and food grants and things like that.

Malcolm Brabant:

In the words of Britain's Institute for Fiscal Studies, the country is in for a long, hard, unpleasant journey, made more arduous by a series of economic blunders.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Malcolm Brabant in Brighton.