The Right to Food UK Commission was launched in Parliament during 2025’s Malnutrition week by lan Byrne MP in November 2025 (Right to Food UK Commission — Ian Byrne MP – Working for West Derby). It consists of a collaboration of experts from The Right To Food National Campaign; The University of Westminster; The Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU); and the Food and Work Network.

All clinical professionals today will encounter patients whose nutritional status is impacted by poverty, insecure housing, benefit sanctions, or inadequate access to affordable healthy food. These systemic failures are directly affecting clinical outcomes as patients are admitted to hospital chronically malnourished and not able to recover effectively once home. Community interventions are also constrained by insufficient finances, limited access to food, or an inability to prepare healthy meals – increasing the time for rehabilitation.

The commission is calling for evidence on the scale and scope of food insecurity throughout the UK, with an aim to submit a report to the Government by September 2026, providing a roadmap implementing the right to food law in the UK that can end hunger by 2035. Recognition of the right to food would require the government to address the systematic roots of food insecurity, reducing the prevalence of diet-related disease that allows clinicians to focus more on prevention and optimisation of clinical interventions.

The Commission held its first evidence session in Liverpool in January 2026, and will be followed by sessions in Belfast, Newcastle, Glasgow, Cardiff, and London. Each session will be preceded by a community meeting to amplify the voices of those with lived experience. If you are unable to attend, please raise submit any evidence the commission may find useful to https://www.ianbyrne.org/rtfcommission-call-for-evidence (please also see the below image that may also be published on all communication channels).