Food: Banks

Debate between Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells and Lord De Mauley

Tuesday 5th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord De Mauley]

My Lords, with respect to the noble Baroness, we are straying a little from food banks. The difficult economic situation is having an impact on everyone, including workers, who find their wages either being frozen or increasing only by small amounts. The Government have protected poor and vulnerable groups as far as possible while undertaking the urgent task of tackling the fiscal deficit. Work remains the best and most immediate way out of poverty, and we have continued to prioritise providing the best possible work incentives through welfare reform and increasing the personal allowance.

[The Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells]

My Lords, food banks are usually used in an emergency to stave off hunger. However, there is a risk that people with no other source of food will become reliant on them, including the 60% of those who use them who are already in work. Will Her Majesty’s Government ensure that welfare reform does not leave families more at risk from hunger?

Environment: Rio+20 Conference

Debate between Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells and Lord De Mauley

Thursday 14th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord De Mauley]

I cannot give my noble friend a specific answer now, but I will write to him. On a more general basis, on 20 April, at the Sanitation and Water for All high-level meeting, the Secretary of State for International Development committed to doubling the UK’s ambitions on water, sanitation and hygiene to reach at least 60 million people by 2015.

[The Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells]

My Lords, I declare an interest as an ambassador for WaterAid and acknowledge that the Rio+20 conference in June followed the Johannesburg summit at which world leaders agreed that the current millennium development goals on sanitation remain substantially off-track in terms of global development targets. Can the Minister kindly give some further information on what the United Kingdom is doing to help to reverse this neglect, which kills more than 700,000 people a year, 90% of them children under five?

[Lord De Mauley]

There are a number of questions within the right reverend Prelate’s question. He referred to the millennium development goals. We are committed to those goals. There is also the question, of course, of the link between them and the sustainable development goals. It is important to look to the framework post-2015, to which we are paying a great deal of attention.