More than 9 million Britons vulnerable to reliance on food banks, research finds

One million more people are in what Trussell charity defines as ‘hunger and hardship’ than five years ago

• How many people in the UK are in ‘hunger and hardship’?

More than 9 million people in the UK experience levels of poverty and hunger so extreme they are vulnerable to reliance on charity food handouts, according to research.

A report by the charity Trussell found Labour would fail to deliver its manifesto promise to remove the “moral scar” of food banks unless it tackled low household incomes in this group, which amounted to one in seven of the population.