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Neoliberal Welfare Reforms and Emergency Food Aid in the UK

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Zero Hunger

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals ((ENUNSDG))

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Driven by an intensification of neoliberalism within the UK political system over the last 45 years, crucial reforms to social security have had a compounding effect on the poorest. In more recent neoliberal times, ideological austerity has progressed hand in hand with political welfare conditionality, as the poorest suffer further demonstrable hardship. Acting as a residual welfare safety net, emergency food aid has become normalized within the UK and recognized as an accepted part of necessary welfare reforms. However, hidden beneath the wave of rising food bank use lies an opaque deepness, obscuring the true extent of UK hunger evident on multiple political and social levels.

Introduction

In Britain, we like to think that food poverty is something that happens in far off places. (Lang 2001: viii)

It is Professor Tim Lang’s foreword in Poverty Bites by Dowler, Turner, and Dobson (2001) which encapsulates the once held belief that hunger would not be something readily...

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Correspondence to Dave Beck .

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Beck, D. (2020). Neoliberal Welfare Reforms and Emergency Food Aid in the UK. In: Leal Filho, W., Azul, A., Brandli, L., Özuyar, P., Wall, T. (eds) Zero Hunger. Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69626-3_87-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69626-3_87-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-69626-3

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