U.K. Charity Says Food-Bank Use Way Up, but Government Disputes Claim

Britain’s biggest food-bank operator said the number of people using its facilities rose more than 2½ times in the past year and blamed the increase on the government’s austerity program, Bloomberg reports.

The Trussell Trust said more than 913,000 people sought aid at its more than 400 food banks in the year ending April 5, compared with 346,992 in 2012-13. The charity said nearly half of referrals to its banks were the result of changes to or delays in welfare payments. “In the last year we’ve seen things get worse, rather than better, for many people on low incomes,” said Chris Mould, the trust’s chairman.

The Conservative-led government, which has overhauled welfare as part of its effort to reduce the U.K. budget deficit, dismissed the charity’s claims, which one senior official called “misleading and emotionally manipulative” publicity-seeking, according to the Daily Mail.

Government officials said the greater numbers stem from the trust’s expansion of its food-bank network and cited a recent report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which found that food poverty has declined in Britain in recent years.