Food Banks (Wales)

Debate between Lord Brennan of Canton and David T C Davies

Tuesday 12th February 2013 Westminster Hall

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship this afternoon, Mrs Riordan. I am delighted and dismayed in equal measure to open this debate on food banks in Wales. I never thought, when I entered public life as a Cardiff councillor a long time ago, in 1991, that this topic would become a priority for discussion. I never thought I would see, in my time in public life, the rapid expansion of centres to hand out food to the people of Wales, on a scale unprecedented since the 1930s.

Of course, we from Wales have particularly strong and often bitter memories of the 1930s and of poverty. It was often said of my grandmother, Gwenllian Evans, a miner’s wife from Nantyglo, that she could spread an egg over Cardiff Arms park, such were her culinary skills of making a little go a long way. My mother, who is still alive today and living in Cwmbrân, often told me of the poverty that she grew up in, in the 1930s, in Nantyglo and the times when it was a struggle to feed the family.

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Kevin Brennan]

I will in a moment. I am just warming up; once I have got into my stride, I will let the hon. Gentleman have a go.

It is for those reasons that I believe the provision of social security is such a strong theme in the history of Welsh politics, and that the rapid increase in food banks in Wales is particularly hard for us in Wales to take.

[David T. C. Davies]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the history lesson as to what life was like under Ramsay MacDonald in the 1930s. Returning to the present, given the hon. Gentleman’s interest in food banks, why did no Labour Member of Parliament ask any questions about them during the entire period of the previous Labour Government?

[Kevin Brennan]

It is because food banks were such a minuscule feature on the scene compared with what we see today, despite the Prime Minister’s erroneous use of statistics recently at Prime Minister’s Question Time, in an attempt to sidestep his failure to take note of the rise of food banks over a long period.

It is particularly apt to talk about the 1930s because we are reliving that period of austerity economics. The failures of, and false theories behind, austerity economics are being repeated. We might expect that from the Conservatives, but it is staggering that it is being repeated in the coalition by the party of John Maynard Keynes through its approach to the economy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan]

Indeed. I am sure that other hon. Members will want to point out that, while this crisis is going on, the Government saw it as their priority to lower the income tax of the richest.

[David T. C. Davies]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Kevin Brennan]

I will get a bit further into my stride before I let the hon. Gentleman have another go.

It is no coincidence that the three giants behind the creation of what became known as the welfare state came from Wales: David Lloyd George, Jim Griffiths and Aneurin Bevan. It is particularly ironic that the Government presiding over a policy that is helping to trigger the rapid expansion of food poverty and food charity for the poor are a Government who include members of the successor party to Lloyd George’s Liberals.