Food Banks (Scotland)

Graeme Morrice Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[Graeme Morrice (Livingston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Glenrothes (Lindsay Roy) on securing this debate.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this important topic, as last week’s autumn statement revealed the true scale of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor’s economic failure. While millionaires get a £3 billion tax cut, it is people who are already struggling to make ends meet—lower and middle-income families, and pensioners—who are paying the price for this failure. Every day, people in this country go hungry for reasons ranging from losing their jobs, to receiving an unexpected bill on a low income. Some 13 million people are living in poverty in this country.

I find it abhorrent that in 2012, people have to rely on food banks or go hungry. What kind of society are we living where so many of our citizens cannot afford to eat properly or keep warm, yet the rich get richer under the coalition Government’s tax breaks for the very wealthy, and the banks continue to make astronomical profits and pay out obscene bonuses? Back home, the SNP Scottish Government stand idly by.

Britain’s biggest food bank operator, the Trussell Trust, has more than 250 food banks throughout the United Kingdom, of which some 10% are located in Scotland. This year alone, it launched three food banks per week in response to demand, which has been exacerbated by the current economic climate. Incredibly, up to 1,000 food banks are needed to satisfy demand that has leapt by 30% a year since the recession began.

The Trussell Trust fed 110,000 people in the first half of this year, and 250,000 hungry Britons—a quarter of a million—will have used emergency food banks by the end of the year. What a dramatic change in a relatively short space of time.

The latest figures, which are four times higher than two years ago—that represents a 400% rise in people using food banks—include parents too poor to feed their children and desperate householders forced to choose between eating and heating. Even people in work are on the breadline, and the number of people struggling to feed themselves is rising. Let me say for the benefit of the Minister that the sole purpose of food banks is to provide an emergency supply of up to three day’s worth of non-perishable and nutritionally balanced food, such as tinned soups, meats and pasta, to individuals and families in crisis who would be at risk of going hungry.

[Mr Donohoe]

Is it not absolutely ironic that in two days’ time Halls of Broxburn, in my hon. Friend’s constituency, is closing and as a consequence, the workers are setting up a food bank? Is that not an indictment against the nationalists and the Government in Westminster?

[Graeme Morrice]

Indeed. It is a sad indictment of both Governments. The example my hon. Friend gave is based in my constituency, and some 1,700 people are in the process of losing their jobs.

The food produce is donated by churches, voluntary groups, individuals and the public via collection days outside supermarkets. To help sustain anonymity, food parcels are handed out from the food bank warehouse distribution centre by volunteers and no deliveries are made. Access to emergency food boxes is secured via the exchange of a voucher, which may be issued by social workers, health visitors, GPs and the police.

Christmas is a particularly difficult time for people with little or no disposable income. I wonder whether Dickens ever imagined such a bleak picture more than a century and a half on from “A Christmas Carol”. Could he have guessed that many of these neglected people would come not from the poorer, deprived sections of society but from middle and lower-income families, and include pensioners? Fewer than 5% of food bank clients are homeless; many are in working families; one third of recipients are children. What a sad indictment of modern society under the Prime Minister and Alex Salmond. The Tories’ instinctive dislike of the poor and the spread of food banks seem to go hand in hand under this Government. How long ago would collecting food parcels for the hungry have been virtually unthinkable in the UK?

I am really disgusted that the Government place so much effort on reforming the benefits system and, in turn, punishing the most vulnerable in our society. Yet if the Government concentrated at least some effort on collecting taxes from the international corporations that operate in this country and on closing some of the loopholes in the tax system, there would be more money to go around. It also makes me sick that the outgoing Governor of the Bank of England is to receive a £7.64 million pension pot, while British kids go hungry.

Increasing costs of food and fuel combined with static income, high unemployment and changes to benefits are causing more and more people to turn to food banks for help. Coalition Government austerity cuts and squeezed incomes are forcing people with jobs, as well as benefit claimants, regularly to queue up for food parcels. Many people everywhere are struggling to make ends meet and household finances are being stretched like never before. A small financial crisis, such as a repair bill for a car or a big bill, can quickly turn into a massive disaster. For many people, buying food slips down their list of priorities simply because other things, such as rent, gas and electricity, have to take precedence. For all those people, turning to a food bank is a last resort.

The effects on poorer people can be devastating. An elderly constituent said in an impassioned plea to me when she visited my surgery that she shivers every time she hears the words “food bank”. It reminds her of the depression and conjures up images of breadlines. Many had hard existences in her day, but looking after people was considered a prime moral virtue, regardless of status.

In my own area, the West Lothian food bank is in the process of being developed in association with the Trussell Trust. I believe that the trust’s experience, coupled with the enthusiasm of those concerned, will ensure that the endeavour will succeed. It serves as a good example of effective community building and is testament to how communities in my constituency and throughout West Lothian—and, indeed, across the country—are harnessing and investing their own resources to assist those in greatest need. I pay tribute to them.

What can be done? The first step is for the Government to stop pretending that poverty is not happening. It would be good to see the Government recognise what is very much evident: that it is the most vulnerable who are in greatest need. We need to break down the barriers and change attitudes between the new “us” and “them”—rich and poor.

We also need to appreciate that if the curtains are closed early in the morning, perhaps there is an elderly pensioner trying to keep the heat in, or an impoverished single mum hiding her shame at her inability to feed her children properly, or an unemployed youngster depressed at being unable to find a job.

Some practical interventions could help: a package of support put in place by the Government for those experiencing an acute crisis in their personal circumstances; and a longer-term Government strategy for dealing with the issues identified in this debate. Ultimately, however, we need a lasting change of direction by this Government or, ideally, a change of Government itself: to one who demonstrate compassion, put ordinary people first and recognise the right priorities.

I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to offer by way of a solution to this completely avoidable crisis.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—