21/01/25. Pat Caplan

The Right to Food – what does this mean?

The north London Borough of Barnet is usually thought of as relatively affluent – ‘leafy’ is a common description – yet it has 22 food banks and a significant proportion of its population which is food insecure.

At a recent Food Emergency Summit organised by the Barnet Food Partnership, one proposed solution for food insecurity in the London Borough of Barnet was to encourage Barnet to become a Right to Food Borough. This sounds like a good idea, as if the Council would be seen to be prioritising the issue of food insecurity. But let’s unpack this a bit.

The UK signed up to the UN Convention on Human Rights in 1948 which includes the following:

Article 25 1. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

The later International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 1966 reiterates and expands on this right, particularly in Article 11.

However, the UK has not incorporated any of this international law into its own legal system  which means that the rights mentioned in these covenants cannot be brought to court, as they are not justiciable.

This is a situation which contrasts sharply with other nation states where the courts can seek to enforce the right to food. India is a good example and has its own laws in the form of The National Food Security Act (NFSA) of 2013, also known as the Right to Food Act, which aims to provide affordable food to the people of India. The state fulfils this law through a public food distribution system (PDS) which provides 5 kg per month of subsidized food grains to eligible households, embracing 75% of rural and 50% of urban populations. Further, the Supreme Court of India has enforced such rights, observing in 2004:

‘The right to life includes the right to live with human dignity and all that goes along with it, namely, the bare necessities of life such as adequate nutrition, clothing and shelter’.

Nonetheless, UK citizens are not without legal means to challenge the lack of right under the Equality Act 2010, as the Independent Food Aid Network (IFAN) points out frequently e.g. in a blog on its ‘cash first’ approach to food insecurity.

The bearer of rights is the citizen, and rights are conferred by the state, whether at local or national level. So can a Local Authority confer the right to food on its residents? In legal terms, this is largely a symbolic gesture, as cases cannot go to court. But it is indicative of aims and targets, so it may be worth having.

Demands for the Right to Food are part of a political struggle which is local in many areas e.g. London and national and international, such as the World Food Programme and the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation).

Some London boroughs have already declared themselves as supporting the right to food e.g. Barnet’s neighbour Brent and Hackney.

Major cities in the UK have similarly declared themselves as having the Right to Food, the first being Liverpool and others have followed e.g. Coventry while Birmingham signed the Milan Global Cities pledge on food justice.

Some areas of the UK have proclaimed that they are’ Marmot cities or boroughs.  These include Leeds, Luton, Coventry, Greater Manchester and Liverpool. The Marmot approach is based on the 2010 Report Fair Society, Healthy Lives published by the Review Team led by Michael Marmot, Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London and Director of the UCL Institute of Health Equity .

The most important principles identified by Michael Marmot are early years development, employment, living standards, communities, ill-health prevention, discrimination, and environmental sustainability. These situate food as foundational to many other aspects of society’s wellbeing.

In their comprehensiveness, the Marmot principles bear comparison with the Welsh 2015 Wellbeing of Future Generations Act which seeks to ensure that future generations are at least as well off as their parents. This means that all aspects of government, national and local, have to take the Act into account in their policies and planning.

There is no point in using this as a token gesture. On the contrary, there needs to be regular monitoring that the ramifications and consequences of the right to food are being observed. For example, Hackney, which passed the Right to Food in January 2023 , has recently asked two councillors to report to the full Council on what has been achieved, while the Council itself has invested money in the ‘food in education’ programme.

In short, then, there are various ways in which local authorities can seek to find ways not only of prioritising food security but of signalling their intent to take this matter seriously and embed it in all of their planning.

One of the aims of the Barnet Food Plan is to create a Food Partnership which would bring together both organisations and individuals with an interest in food, including food aid charities, food businesses such as retail and hospitality, growers (including allotment holders) and, in addition to the third sector, the Borough Council  represented by Departments such as Public Health.

Barnet’s Vision as set out in its Current Food Plan

Our vision is for Barnet to have a sustainable and good quality system of food production, provision and consumption that will improve everyone’s health and wellbeing. Barnet residents will be able to afford and have both the opportunity and knowledge required to eat food that is good for them and good for the planet. We will take action to address the drivers of food insecurity, resilience is built at individual and household level, and emergency food aid is available for those in crisis. A strong partnership between all actors in the food system, including local residents, will build on the work already delivered by the voluntary and community sector to drive our vision forward.

The first meeting of the Barnet Food Partnership (henceforth BFP) in March 2023 attracted a dozen people, mostly from the food aid and food growing sectors, and was chaired by the then head of public health. It was decided to have a Food Charter for the Borough, and to hold a food Summit to raise awareness of food issues and to try and recruit members from a wider section of food organisations, including business. A Committee of seven members was set  up and this has met almost weekly, while the Food Partnership as a whole meets less frequently. Since 2023, the membership has expanded to over 60 individuals and organizations. A web site is in the process of development.

The aims adopted are as follows:

We believe access to good food in Barnet is an essential right. Our vision is to have a food system that promotes health and is sustainable, equitable and resilient. All residents should have access to affordable food that is: good for their health and well-being, good for the environment, good for the local economy, and that can bring communities together.

In short then, there are two categories of players in this context: the local state (the Borough) and voluntary or charitable organisations in the Third Sector, which range widely in size and purpose. In this situation, Council policy is decided primarily by Councillors and officers, although often the implementation of its policies is carried out by the Third Sector organisations which are not usually represented on Council Committees or Boards.

Like most local authorities, Barnet has serious financial problems which have necessitated extensive cuts in services. This  is largely because the grant to local authorities from central government has been steadily eroded for a number of years, while leaving councils to manage their finances from the income derived from council tax and business rates. Councils retain a large number of statutory duties which cannot be cut, including children’s safeguarding, social care and adult social care; planning and housing services; waste collection, road maintenance and library services. Needless to say, costs are rising in all of these areas, as it demand for them.

There is thus inevitably a wide gap between what the Council would like to do and what is possible, given the financial constraints. Currently the Council is conducting a consultation exercise with residents about which services might be cut back further.

What of Third Sector organisations? Some of these are long-established and may be supported by faith organisations, particularly those which use religious premises such as church halls. Although some receive membership fees, many continuously need to seek outside grant funding, large and small, and attain varying degrees of success. All are dependent to a large extent on volunteers although a few, such as a minority of food banks, employ some staff.

The Barnet Food Partnership consists largely of members from Third Sector organisations, with a single Council officer attending and chairing meetings. Although in an early meeting it was agreed that it was ‘important to liaise with the Council’, in practice this has not always proved easy. Barnet residents do have the right to attend many of the Council’s Boards and Committee, and in some cases to pose questions in advance, but they do not sit on such bodies. An early suggestion of the BFU was have a named Councillor with whom to liaise, preferably one who sat in the Cabinet, but in spite of requests this has still not happened.

How then do Third Sector organizations like the BFP communicate with the Council?

• They may ask the Food Officer to convey messages and information from the BFP to a relevant food officer. Conversely the BFP might invite a particular food officer to attend one of its meetings
• A Third Sector organization might send questions to a relevant Council Board or Committee, if its agenda is relevant to the query
• They may utilize the services of their local Ward Councillors
• They might write to the relevant officers or Councillors

Under these circumstances, the BFP may thus request information or suggest a course of action, but it cannot make demands. Further, policies may well have already been decided before they are conveyed to the BFP members.

A good example of this is the closure of the Barnet Food Hub which was set up with government covid funding to distribute food to most of the borough’s many food banks. When this funding ceased, the Council decided it could not to find the necessary funds itself,  but did not convey this information either to the food banks or the BFP until the last minute. A meeting of food bank managers was called a month before the closure when the Head of Public Health told her audience that the Hub would be closing, but there were hopes of continuing a scaled-down version of deliveries for a few months while further funding was sought. The managers were devastated and angry. They turned to the BFU to help them find solutions and the latter produced a list of possible sources of food for which they could apply

This development was widely reported both locally and nationally : but it does leave the  BFP, including the food banks, wondering what exactly is the meaning of a ‘partnership’.