Our response to the Spending Review

A new Crisis and Resilience Fund  

Although it didn’t feature in the Chancellor’s speech, the Spending Review had a welcome detail on new long-term funding for local crisis support in England.  

A new £1 billion per year Crisis and Resilience Fund will replace the Household Support Fund from April 2026. Crucially, this means guaranteed funding for local authorities to provide support to people on low incomes for at least the next three years. Local authorities in England will receive £842 million per year with the remainder allocated to the devolved governments in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The new fund was also explicitly linked in the Spending Review document to the manifesto commitment to end the need for emergency food.

We’ve been clear on the need for a new approach to local crisis support that prioritises cash-first support to help people through a sudden crisis, connected to the right advice and wider support to prevent more sustained hardship. This is the kind of investment that provides a lifeline to people facing severe hardship and reduces the need for emergency food to fill the gap in a crisis, as well as helping people onto a more secure financial footing for the future.

It’s encouraging, therefore, that the government has said the funding will be about providing preventative support in communities, as well as assisting people faced with a financial crisis. We also know funding for Discretionary Housing Payments will be incorporated into the new fund, which should enable more joined up local crisis support – better for councils to make the most of their funding and for people in crisis to access local authority crisis support through a single route.  

The rest of the details are still to come, and we look forward to working with government, local authorities and other anti-poverty charities to ensure the funding is used to deliver effective and dignified support before someone finds themselves needing to turn to a food bank.

More safe, secure and affordable homes

Unaffordable, insecure housing is pushing people into homelessness and to the doors of food banks. So, like others, we were very pleased to see significant new investment in social housing as part of the Spending Review, with £39 billion confirmed for a new 10-year Affordable Homes Programme in England. This is direct funding for building new homes, including homes for social rent where rents are set well below market rates.

We still need some important details, including how much of the new funding will go to building social rent homes, and clarity on how many homes will be built and by when. But the decision to spend more on social housing is a positive step towards getting the building blocks in place that will end the need for emergency food for good.

Along with money for new homes, the Chancellor also confirmed £13.2 billion over four years for a Warm Homes Plan to make homes more energy efficient. This is a positive move to help lower energy bills and reduce the number of people stuck in cold and unhealthy homes. We want to see the Warm Homes Plan used to kickstart a nationwide insulation programme reaching everyone on a low income, living in a cold home.

Positive action still risks being undermined by looming cuts to social security

Taken together with the news the government has chosen to allocate funding to expand Free School Meals to all children in England whose families receive Universal Credit, the Spending Review does offer some hope for food banks stretched to breaking point, and the people forced to turn to them for support.

And while we welcome the Chancellor’s focus on long-term change, we also know the scale of severe hardship in our communities is already doing untold damage.

The UK government now needs to prioritise ensuring incomes are sufficient to protect people from going without the essentials, recognising that investment in social security is the most effective solution to lifting people out of hunger and hardship.

The Spending Review still leaves millions of disabled people and carers to live in fear of the looming enormous cuts to crucial social security support. Cuts we know will push 440,000 people into severe hardship and at risk of needing a food bank. The government needs to halt these plans and work with disabled people to make social security for disabled people fit for purpose, so that it delivers dignity and protection from hunger and hardship.

Looking further ahead, the Autumn Budget and the Child Poverty Strategy will be further crucial moments for the government to deliver on its commitment to end the need for emergency food parcels, starting by lifting the two-child limit and taking steps towards ensuring Universal Credit at least covers the cost of essentials.