The Northern Echo has been looking at the changing nature of poverty in the North-East, speaking to people with personal experience, to show the human stories behind the statistics.

This has been a joint piece of work in conjunction with Church Action on Poverty, a social justice charity based in Salford, Manchester, but working across the UK.

Interviews for this project were carried out by Gavin Aitchison, the charity’s media unit coordinator, who was previously a journalist at The Northern Echo’s sister paper, The Press in York.

Researchers from Joseph Rowntree Foundation, based in York, also supported this work, providing detailed statistics broken down by region, showing variations in pay levels, unemployment and job availability.

CALLS for Government action on hunger were growing on Wednesday night as people in the North-East told how they are missing meals, surviving on just £1 a day for food and selling their possession in order to eat.

People around the region said they regularly do not have enough money for food, and volunteers and staff at food banks have warned food poverty will continue to worsen if nothing is done.

Research published this month by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation confirmed rising living costs hit people on low incomes most, including through reduced financial ability to take advantage of special offers on food, fuel and white goods.

Peter Bates, from Hetton-le-Hole, told The Northern Echo: “I would be lucky if I have £30 a fortnight for food once I have paid everything else, so I come to places like this, the Place of Welcome in Easington Lane, where I can get lunch.

“I get food by using foodbanks and doing odd jobs for neighbours, and selling my possessions. I have sold my telly and everything. I’ve even resorted to just picking up odd bits of scrap when I am walking around, because there’s a lot of scrap men round here – just bits here and there that I find fly-tipped.

“I have gone two or three days without food before. I often miss meals. I don’t have enough to eat. I seem to sleep more, I’m more lethargic. I used to walk everywhere, miles and miles, but now it’s a chore even coming up here, a mile and a half.”

Mr Bates worked night shifts at a 24-hour Tesco, but was made redundant a year ago, when the shop stopped opening at nights.

He said: “I have been out of work a year now and there is nothing. There’s car manufacturing and I have done the training but when I did the trial I wasn’t fast enough. So I’m doing odd jobs for people for donations of food.

“For Universal Credit, I’m supposed to do eight hours a day job searching, and I’m supposed to go online but I cannot afford the internet. Hetton library has shut down so the closest place is here or Houghton, a mile and a half away.

"Then you go to the Direct Gov site, they will have 40 to 50 jobs but 28 to 30 of them will be the same jobs but with different agencies. There are some nurse jobs but I’m not a nurse, and other jobs are gone. It’s very demoralising.”

Lorraine from Stockton, who did not want to give her surname, said she typically had £30 a week to feed four adults in her household.

She said: “My son recently won some lottery money and put it on the gas. Otherwise, I would not have had the gas on; I would not have been able to pay it.

"Normally, we put it on only a little; that’s all we can afford. But my son put £40 on it, and we’ve never had that before. I want to keep it. The only time I used to use the gas was for a bath. Often in the winter we go without heating, we always just use quilts and blankets – so we are trying to make that £40 last.

“We used to have a car but gave that up and I have noticed now when I go shopping, prices are going up and up and up all the time.

"We have four adults in our house and my son’s a big eater, and the weekly shop has got more expensive. Once I’ve paid the rent and the gas and electric, we usually have around £60 for a fortnight’s food between four of us. It’s hard.”

Earlier this year, a report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations said the UK had the second highest rate of food insecurity in Europe from 2014 to 2016, with an estimated 2.7m Brits living in a household where at least one adult is severely food insecure.

In November, South Shields MP Emma Lewell-Buck proposed a bill in Parliament, calling on the Government to routinely measure and monitor food insecurity, as happens in many other countries such as Canada and the US.

The bill is supported by many charities, including Trussell Trust, the country’s largest food bank operator, and it will return to Parliament in February.

Laura Chalmers, Trussell Trust’s area manager for Yorkshire and Humberside, said: “More and more people across the north of England are having to turn to food banks or other emergency providers.

“There are many factors but benefits delays, sanctions and Universal Credit are three big ones. More must be done to measure and address food insecurity.”

Stuart Hudson, distribution centres manager at Durham Food Bank, said it had provided 114 tonnes between January 1 and December 8 this year, an increase of 21 per cent on the same period in 2016, but in areas of County Durham where Universal Credit had been rolled out, there had been a 40 per cent rise in food bank use.

Margaret Scanlin, a volunteer at the Hetton New Dawn food bank in Easington Lane, said: “When we started, sanctions were the main problem. And now, people have got weeks with no money if they change to Universal Credit. Demand has been going up and up and up.

“Mental health issues are overtaking people because of this. For people who have a bit of a mental health problem this has escalated it and made it worse. People who are on no money for six weeks do not have spare stuff stocked up in the fridge – and some don’t even have a fridge.”

Hilary Avent, who also works at the food bank, said: “As Christmas approaches people make the choice to buy for the children rather than buy food for themselves. They do not want the children missing out, so it increases the need for people who rely on the food bank.”

She added: “Again and again, it’s sanctions that have put people into debt and often debt leads them to unscrupulous loans where they never stand a chance of getting out of it. Only a few weeks ago we had a young man desperate because he was under threat from people he had borrowed from. He tried suicide and was taken into protective custody."

The Department for Work and Pensions was approached for a comment, but did not provide one.