Food Banks

Debate between Lord Field of Birkenhead and Mark Lazarowicz

Wednesday 18th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

Government Members have often cited the use of food banks on the continent, and in my short contribution I want to suggest two things. The first is that there are now movements in western economies that are disadvantaging the poor, and we need to think of solutions to that. Secondly, I want to suggest to the Government where their policies have made this position much, much worse. We may not yet understand the basic forces to which we may want to apply policies, but the Government could raise questions about their own policies and ask how they are impoverishing people. I hope the reason for the absence of the whole of the DWP ministerial team is that it is thinking about what sort of reply it is going to give to this debate, with these possible concessions in mind.

Fifteen months ago the Trussell Trust said that by the general election it would be feeding half a million of our constituents. I asked the Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s Question Time what he was going to do to prevent that prediction from coming true. I did not get a comprehensive answer, to put it mildly. We have learned from today’s debate that that point has already been passed a year and a quarter, or a year and a third, before that general election, and the number will continue to increase.

If we look at the data, we find that in our country the proportion of income the poor now have to spend on food, utilities and rent is rising. I think that gives us an answer to Lord Freud, who said that if we supply a free good, people will turn up and claim it. It might be that if people are worried about not being able to meet their rent or that their electricity will be cut off, and there is the possibility of people giving them food, they will take that opportunity so that they can meet other basic requirements from their budget.

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

The figures for food banks are only the tip of the iceberg, of course, as there are many other locations to which people go to get free food, such as soup kitchens. They have also seen a big increase in attendance over the last few years, and that is part of the picture as well.

[Mr Field]

I totally accept that point and I am going to come back to it by talking about how inaccurate our data are on this whole issue, but the House needs to take into account that something very important is going on in our economy which is disadvantaging the poor the most.