Food Banks (Scotland)

Debate between Fiona O'Donnell and Russell Brown

Wednesday 19th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Fiona O'Donnell). I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Glenrothes (Lindsay Roy) on securing the debate.

It is only a week since we last had a debate in Westminster Hall on food poverty. I want quickly to mention one or two things that were raised then, and to discuss a local organisation in my area. We all know of the good work of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and we heard in the debate last week that its latest report shows that 13.2 million people in this country live in poverty. There is also the recent shocking report by Save the Children. There is no doubt that Save the Children, along with the Children’s Society and Barnardo’s, does tremendous work the length and breadth of the country. That Save the Children report, which was released in September, states that well over half of parents in poverty—some 61%—say they have cut back on food, and more than a quarter—26%—say they have skipped meals. That comes back to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson) made about mothers all too often saying, “I’ll get something later.” Those words resonate with me because I come from a large family, and on numerous occasions my mother said that, without my realising what she was really saying. We would be having a meal as a family of five children, and mother was going to get something later—that probably never happened.

I want to raise again today a point I raised in last week’s debate, because it is important that we understand just how desperate things get for people. In the Save the Children report, a parent is quoted as saying:

“A year or so ago, we literally relied on any money we raised at car boot sales to pay for food for the week. Some weeks weren’t too bad, others were dire. The British weather decided how we lived that week (when it rained, the turnout at car boot sales fell).”

It is terrible to think that people have to go to such lengths to have money for food.

I want quickly to mention the First Base Agency in Dumfriesshire, organised by a guy called Mark Frankland. Mark is real local worthy. He initially set up the agency to help and support individuals with drug and alcohol problems, and from the success of that he went on to work with veterans, providing them with support through a gardening scheme. They managed to produce some fresh vegetables, and I suspect he must have also had some kind of livestock, because he ended up producing eggs as well.

Mark is a well-known guy who does a lot of work, and the scheme for veterans was therapeutic work, to get some guys back on the road. He has developed a local charity into a business, and that business provides a factoring service for a local registered social landlord, thereby creating a number of jobs that are given over to veterans. Mark has also, very much under the radar, provided food parcels. He is not a recognised food bank of the kind that colleagues have described this morning and in other debates, but he has provided food parcels for a number of years to some of the most vulnerable individuals and families in the local area. Support through churches and local charities has enabled it all to happen. I spoke to Mark yesterday, and he told me that between November last year and November this year the demand for food parcels trebled. One of the parcels that he manages to provide lasts a family for about three days.

From a wider perspective, all too often we hear comparisons in the House between the UK’s deficit and debt and those of Greece and Spain, with people saying that we are in the same ball park. The fact is that about 2.5% of the population in Greece and Spain is supported by voluntary sector handouts, and that equates to 10 times the support we are experiencing in the UK through food banks and other charities. I absolutely balk, therefore, at the idea that we should be compared with those countries, and I am pleased that we are not there along with them because I wonder what some families, households and communities would be experiencing if the situation was as bad as that.

Colleagues have mentioned the Department for Work and Pensions, and I want to give an example similar to the one that my hon. Friend the Member for Glenrothes gave. A single father with three children fell foul of the DWP—the Department, not the staff; the staff are only delivering the systems and policies that are dictated to them. The unfortunate gentleman fell foul of the DWP when he missed an appointment, an appointment of which he said he definitely never received notification. Sanctions were imposed, including a two-month suspension. A father and three children had to simply get by—on what? Fresh air? People must have some kind of support. Frustratingly, the guy was unemployed. He had spare time on his hands, so he went along to the First Base Agency and helped Mark Frankland. He saw it as a duty to do a bit of voluntary work for someone who had helped him in the past.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that the Government are not just dividing rich against poor, but the deserving poor against the undeserving poor?

[Mr Brown]

Absolutely. I could not put it better myself.

So with a two-month suspension and no money, how could the family cope? What kind of lesson or way of existing is that? What kind of environment is that in which to bring up children? Let us not forget the point that my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian made about the need for children to be fed properly, to enable them to develop at a young age. It is life experiences in the early years that have the most impact on children.

We have talked about the SNP Government, and I appreciate that that is not an issue for the Minister to respond to, unless he finds that he has the same train of thought as I do on it. Local government is, however, under real pressure, and what Mark Frankland at the First Base Agency has been experiencing for a long time is social services referring families to him for food parcels. I have spoken to Mark in the past 24 hours and he has told me that social workers will arrive at his office today to pick up food parcels to deliver to some of their clients. A little extra money into social services from the Scottish Government would go a long way.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Fiona O'Donnell and Russell Brown

Tuesday 15th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Brown]

I must tell the hon. Gentleman that we have moved on: we now have trains, buses and taxis, so people would not necessarily walk.

I want to get back to the debate on the hon. Gentleman’s new clause, because I want the House to have time to debate new clause 19 as well. The hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) said that the hon. Gentleman’s proposal was ludicrous; I would go further and say that it is sheer lunacy. In January 2007, the Energy Saving (Daylight) Bill was introduced by the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr Yeo). Many Members might have considered supporting it, but for the fact that it contained a nasty clause that gave the devolved Administrations the opportunity to opt out. I ask the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar and others who support his proposal to consider how the drivers in a small haulage business based in two locations—let us say Carlisle and Dumfries—would manage the tachograph when moving from one side of the border to the other.

The new clause makes no sense whatever. I hope that, rather than dividing the Committee on the proposal, the hon. Gentleman will see sense. His proposal would make it more likely that we would end up with two different time zones. I urge him to withdraw the new clause.

[Fiona O’Donnell]

I will make my contribution brief as well, although I shall not speak at quite the same speed as the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil). He reminded me of a child who needed to go to the toilet as he delivered his speech so terribly quickly. The hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) said that he had risen to speak with a heavy heart. I am rising with a sore head, and that is not just about the sleep deprivation that I mentioned earlier. It is because I honestly cannot understand what possessed the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar to table this new clause. He cannot bring a proposal before the Committee and then not want us to discuss its possible implications. He cannot tell us what any Scottish Government, even his own, might choose to do with such powers, given that he voted against the sell-off of the forests in England while his Government tried to sell off the forests in Scotland. It is essential that we scrutinise the implications of the new clause. It exposes the fact that the SNP is good at minority reports and at gesture politics, but not good at government.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Fiona O'Donnell and Russell Brown

Monday 14th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Brown]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s clarification of the distances that people travel. I believe that that will be important in the case that the Government are trying to make for a rural fuel derogation. I am not demeaning anyone, but saying that we need to be clear when discussing finance what the situation will be.

Those are the brief points that I wanted to make, and I hope that we can get clarification before we vote on these issues this evening.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

You may not have been present the last time I spoke on the Scotland Bill, Mr Walker, but it was my birthday. Every time I speak about the Scotland Bill, it feels like my birthday.

In contrast to the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie), the Bill offers real progress for Scotland and a recognition of all that has been achieved at Holyrood. At the same time, it offers the stability of remaining as part of the Union, which protects Scotland against some risks. The hon. Gentleman seemed to be disappointed by what he called the politics in the report of the Scottish Parliament’s Scotland Bill Committee. Perhaps, however, we should look at the history of how we have come to this point.

We had the Scottish constitutional convention and the Calman commission, both of which the hon. Gentleman’s party declined to be part of. Those things stand in sharp contrast to the SNP’s own record, because the national conversation, which my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Ann McKechin) spoke about at some length, has delivered nothing for the people of Scotland or the Scottish Parliament. That contrasts with what is on offer before the Committee today. Of course there is detail in the Bill that we need the Government to iron out, but even the Bill Committee in the Scottish Parliament—I believe it is the first time that a Committee of that type has been established, to give the Bill the scrutiny that it deserves and merits—has acknowledged that there is time to work on some of the details.

We could fair see how all puffed up with pride the hon. Gentleman was about all the amendments that he had brought before us, but I have to say that I found his arguments unconvincing. The SNP had all the time that Calman was discussing a way forward to come up with some detailed proposals, and it had some weeks of the Scotland Bill Committee’s work in Holyrood, yet what do we see? A single piece of paper containing its proposals for lasting change and progress in Scotland. I am afraid that is the sum total of its contribution.