On Monday 26th February, the 
All Party Parliamentary Group on Faith and Society held an event celebrating the Faith New Deal Pilot Fund, spotlighting Love Southampton at Portcullis House. Through the Faith New Deal Pilot Fund, Love Southampton supported local food aid and redistribution efforts and conducted a large-scale evaluation of its impact, discovering that 1.4 million meals were distributed in a year.
Daniel Singleton with Baroness Scott
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Minister of Faith) spoke about how faith groups can solve local issues by working in partnership. Love Southampton weren’t alone in addressing food poverty, and 7 out of the 15 projects in the Faith New Deal focused on food distribution. As a result, over 900,000 meals or food parcels were distributed. Baroness Scott stressed the importance of projects working in close partnership in order to widen their overall impact. The Faith New Deal pilot programme helped government to forge new relationships with many faith-based organisations, which is something that is the government would ideally like to continue.
"... faith groups, working in partnership can play a significant and effective role in supporting community cohesion by solving local problems."
Paul Woodman of Love Southampton spoke about their work, which was subsidised by the Faith New Deal Funding.
As part of the Faith New Pilot Fund, a large-scale evaluation of the impact of food aid and redistribution in Southampton found that 1.4 million meals were distributed in a year, equivalent to £5.8 million of food.
You can hear more from Paul by joining us at the next Coffee House
We heard from the Faith Minister, Baroness Scott of Bybrook, as well as Dr. Alan Whitehead MP for Southampton Test. Following this, there was a panel, chaired by Sir Stephen Timms, with Jonny Wineberg of Jewish Action for Mental Health, Mahmooda Qureshi of The Faith & Belief Forum in Solihull, Professor Keith Brown of Bournemouth University, and Daniel Singleton of FaithAction. The audience were invited to put questions to the panel.
... Relationship creates a bridge of social capital. It was the relationships we saw with faith forums, and faith covenant areas, and in food partnerships, which enabled responses to COVID to come about.
