Families in Britain have become twice as likely to live in food poverty under David Cameron, EU figures revealed yesterday.

Britain’s food poor rose from 4 per cent in 2009-10 to 8.7 per cent in the last year.

Thousands of people across Britain are now unable to afford meat, fish or vegetarian equivalent every other day, according to official European Union research, and Britain lagged behind some of Europe’s poorest countries, including Spain, Portugal and Ireland. SNP MP Hannah Bardell said the findings were “a national disgrace.”

Her colleague MSP Christina McKelvie said: “The rise in foodbank use and Britain’s poor performance compared to other European nations is a stark reminder of the mounting problem of food poverty. The fact that the number of people being unable to afford a nutritious meal every second day has more than doubled under David Cameron’s Tory government is totally unacceptable.

“The government’s welfare cuts have placed some of the most vulnerable people, and increasing numbers of working people and their families too, into poverty.”

Responding to the SNP’s charges, a government spokesman said: “Reforms to welfare are designed to help people into work, giving more people peace of mind and security.”

He added that £94 billion were spent on benefits “to support millions of people who are unemployed or on low incomes.”

But Ewan Gurr, spokesman for Britain’s largest foodbank network, the Trussell Trust, told the Star: “The all-party parliamentary group inquiry into hunger in Britain revealed last year that the rise in cost of food, fuel and housing had been higher here than any other European nation in the last decade. This reaffirms the findings that the squeeze on British household food budgets in the last five years has been disproportionately high and has the potential to restrict food choices low-income families can make.”

According to Mr Gurr, the Trussell Trust has seen an annual increase in food distribution of 100 per cent since 2010, with referrals growing to more than one million this year. He said: “This, for us, is cause for deep concern.

“We must, as a nation, take immediate action to address the impact of UK hunger.”