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The company’s system of charging drivers if they cannot cover their round has been described as appalling by the chairman of the House of Commons’ work and pensions committee, Frank Field.

BIRKENHEAD MP Frank Field is demanding an urgent meeting with Marks & Spencer bosses after the retail giant announced plans to close its store in the town centre as part of a restructuring programme.

Frank Field, chairman of the APPG on Hunger, said: “Beneath the radar there are malnourished older people in this country spending two or three months withering away in their own homes, with some entering hospital weighing five and a half stone with an infection, or following a fall, which keeps them there for several torturous days, if not weeks.”

The all-party parliamentary group on hunger says social isolation caused by bereavement, illness, immobility or confinement - such as through the loss of a driving licence - are the main causes of a largely "hidden" problem of elderly hunger in the UK.

It comes after a bill by Labour's Frank Field to make authorities enable such services failed to win Government support.

Frank Field said that he would add it to a wider investigation by the parliamentary committee into companies that leave big holes in their pension pots before having to be rescued.

In October after a Globe petition backed by almost 10,000 readers, and delivered by Frank Field MP, David Allison agreed to review charging staff members £10 to park at Arrowe Park Hospital.

Frank Field, whose story of a hungry constituent moved Heidi Allen to tears, says he is seeing destitution, not poverty

The 13 MPs who signed the letter, all from Labour, were led by Birkenhead MP Frank Field