Food Banks
Debate between Baroness Laing of Elderslie and Maria Eagle(10 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Maria Eagle
No.
To suggest that people can just arrive at a food bank asking for free food shows how out of touch Ministers are with the way food banks work. [Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. I cannot hear the shadow Minister, but she is speaking perfectly clearly. There is too much noise in the Chamber. Members should have the courtesy to listen to the hon. Lady moving the motion.
Madam Deputy Speaker
The hon. Gentleman knows that that is a matter for debate, and I have no doubt that he will be able to put that point later in the debate. The more time we spend on points of order and on me quietening people down, the less time there will be for Members to make the points they wish to make.
Maria Eagle
To suggest that people can just arrive at a food bank asking for free food shows just how out of touch Ministers are with the way food banks work. The Trussell Trust is very clear: over 50% of referral agents are statutory agencies, and referrers include doctors, social workers, school liaison officers and citizens advice bureaux advisers. These professionals make sure that people turning to food banks are in genuine crisis.
People are using food banks not out of choice, but out of necessity, yet Ministers still refuse to listen. The Education Secretary has claimed that people are turning to food banks because
“they are not best able to manage their finances.”—[Official Report, 9 September 2013; Vol. 567, c. 681.]
How insulting, patronising and out of touch is that comment.
There is a very straightforward way for Ministers to clear up any doubt about the reasons for the increase in reliance on food aid: they can finally publish the official report into the growth of food banks, which was delivered to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in June. That report has now been sat on by Ministers for six months, longer than it took to produce. In April, the then Minister of State at DEFRA, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), said:
“The conclusions of this work will be available in the summer and published on the Government's website.”—[Official Report, 23 April 2013; Vol. 561, c. 821W.]
Now Ministers say the report is still being subjected to
“an appropriate review and quality assurance process.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 26 November 2013; Vol. 749, c. 1293.]
I bet it is. It is very clear that the Government are determined to hide the true scale of the growth of food banks. They are right to be embarrassed by the truth, but they should come clean, so I say to the Minister today that she should finally force her fellow Ministers in DEFRA to publish this report.
Even without the Government’s hidden report, the reasons for the rise in food bank use is clear: it is the cost of living crisis facing householders up and down the country; it is because even as we finally see some growth in parts of the economy after three years of failure, that growth is not being shared fairly. Last week’s Office for National Statistics figures were clear: average earnings have risen by less than the rate of inflation for the fifth year running. Figures published alongside the autumn statement showed that real wages will have fallen by 5.8% by the end of this Parliament. Under this Government, we have seen the longest period of falling real wage values since records began, and the consequence is that working people are £1,600 a year worse off under this Government.
Maria Eagle
No.
The number of those paid less than a living wage is up by 1.4 million since 2009, to 4.8 million workers in the UK last year—[Interruption.] No, I have been very clear that I am not giving way again in this debate. [Interruption.] As pay packets shrink in real terms, prices continue to rise, and they rise faster than wages. That has happened for 41 of the—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. I do not understand why there are conversations going on all around the Chamber. [Interruption.] I can see where they are taking place. If Members are here to take part in the debate, they must listen to the hon. Lady who is proposing the motion.
Maria Eagle
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
As pay packets shrink in real terms, prices continue to rise, and they are rising faster than wages. They have done that for 41 of the 42 months that this Prime Minister has been in Downing street.