Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of social supermarkets on (a) alleviating food poverty and (b) supporting community activities.

Social supermarkets are independent organisations and Department for Work and Pensions does not hold data on their operation. We are committed to tackling food poverty and ending mass dependence of emergency food parcels. To inform this work DWP officials have engaged with a range of organisations including social supermarkets to better understand the complex food poverty landscape.

Voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations like social supermarkets play a unique role in driving community cohesion and giving voice to communities' agency and opportunity to serve. This is why this government has announced a new Civil Society Covenant, to reset the relationship with civil society and build a new partnership that can harness the sector's full potential to rebuild our country and deliver against the government’s 5 missions.