Charities have called for councils to be given funding to help support families after food banks reported their busiest month ever.

Figures published by the Trussell Trust show that the number of families needing emergency food parcels soared by 89% during April 2020, compared to April 2019. The number of families with children receiving parcels also doubled compared to the same time period last year.

A coalition of charities is now calling on the Government to ensure councils have enough funding to provide emergency cash grants to struggling households.

The charities - including the Trussell Trust, IFAN, Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), Children’s Society, Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), StepChange and Turn2us - are proposing a temporary?Coronavirus Emergency Income Support Scheme.

This includes increasing benefits to help with the costs of raising children, extending the suspension of benefit reductions to include advance payments, and lifting the benefit cap.?

Emma Revie,?chief executive of the Trussell Trust, said: ‘We have been seeing rises in food bank need for the past five years but this 89% increase - with the number of families coming to food banks doubling - is completely unprecedented and not right. People need to be able to put food on their table.

’The Government must put urgent support in place to ensure people already struggling to keep their heads above water can stay afloat. We have outlined what we need our government to do - it’s in our power to protect one another, we’ve seen it during this health crisis, and we need it to continue during this economic one.’

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