Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if her Department will take steps to collect official statistics on food bank usage in the UK following the national roll-out of universal credit.

We review research carried out by organisations including the Trussell Trust to add to our understanding of food bank use, and are considering requirements to add to our evidence base.

We have no current plans to develop official national statistics on food bank use. However, the Office for National Statistics is leading a project to improve statistics on household food insecurity by reviewing all existing official and non-official sources of data and looking at options to fill data gaps in partnership with government departments, including the Department for Work and Pensions.