Open letter to Chi Onwurah MP ahead of the Spring Statment - Urgent Action Required: Support Ending the Benefit Caps & NRPF
Towards an Organised Workplace, Community, and Household
Food and Solidarity Limited (Company number 13356464)
Registered office: 120-124 Buckingham St, Newcastle upon Tyne
Organiser@foodandsolidarity.org
15/03/2025
Subject: Urgent Action Required: Support Ending the Benefit Caps & NRPF
Dear Chi Onwurah MP,
In 2023, you rightly asked, "Why is this Government making it so hard for our kids?" Yet today, with a change of government, we still do not have any commitment to ending the government policies that are keeping children in poverty.
We are Food & Solidarity, a grassroots community organization made up of families, workers, and volunteers fighting against poverty in Newcastle. We provide direct support to families facing hardship, but we know charity is not enough—we need real political change. Last year we provided over 3000 parcels of fruit, vegetables, and household goods, and this together with other work, earned us the Big Issue Changemaker 2025 award.
The North East has the highest rate of child poverty in the UK, with over 45% of children growing up in poverty in your constituency, Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West. In our city, families face impossible choices between heating and eating, between rent and food. Parents are skipping meals, so their children can eat.
The Benefit Caps and No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) are key drivers of child poverty, forcing families into deeper destitution. These are policies of cruelty, and there is no justification for Labour to keep them in place.
Labour has positioned itself as the party of working people, yet families across the North East are being abandoned to poverty. We see the consequences of these policies firsthand: children going hungry, parents falling into rent arrears, and communities left without support. Austerity has devastated working-class families, and these policies are relics of that same failed approach, they failed before and they will fail again.
We are demanding that you publicly support the immediate scrapping of both the Benefit Caps and NRPF by close of business Friday, March 21st. Failing to do so would be a betrayal of the families you were elected to represent.
This is a test of leadership. We need leaders who stand against poverty, not just against the Tories.
Sincerely,
Food & Solidarity
