Ruth du Plessis, Director of Public Health for St Helens, attended Feeding Britain’s 2024 summer parliamentary reception at The House of Lords
The event hosted by Baroness Boycott, trustee of Feeding Britain, focused on the future of community food provision and how partners can work together to help end the need for food banks. The reception also provided an opportunity to recognise and learn from the work taking place all over the country from frontline projects, food networks and partners, as well as to meet and get to know partners from across the network.
At the event, progress and challenges of the last five years were reflected upon, with goals set for the next five years. Ruth attended the event as part of her work with the Inequalities Commission to increase access to foot pantries in St Helens, as well as her role in personally supporting the establishment of a food pantry at her local church.
Speaking about the reception, Ruth said:
“Even prior to the pandemic, the Council and our partners recognised that some people in the borough were struggling to access affordable healthy food, so we had already supported the Faith Sector to apply for funding to set up a mobile food pantry.”
Ruth continued: “After the pandemic, we knew that some people were regularly going hungry, and that people wanted to eat healthy but some were unable to afford to. This was raised with us by residents when we engaged with local people to help shape the work of the Inequalities Commission.”
“What I enjoyed most about this event was hearing from the range of speakers and meeting inspirational people from all over the country, many of whom are volunteers working on a range of food-related projects.
“We discussed a range of topics including the positive impact of food panties, advocacy for automatic access to healthy start vouchers, and the success of the holiday activity and food programme. I am very grateful to Baroness Boycott for the invitation.”
The Feeding Britain network has over 100 regional partners. It is 10 years after the Feeding Britain report was published by the all-party parliamentary inquiry into hunger and food poverty, the reception bought together a wide variety of regional and local partners, likeminded national organisations, academics, and politicians.
