Food Banks (Wales)

Guto Bebb Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2013 Westminster Hall

[Kevin Brennan]

Yes, I suspect my hon. Friend is right. I am sure the Minister has visited a food bank and will say what impression it made on him. What were his feelings on visiting the food bank?

Government policies such as the Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill, the VAT hike and the bedroom tax are making the crisis worse. I hope the Minister will distance himself from the comments we have heard from Downing street and acknowledge that Government policies are making things worse, not better, for hundreds of thousands of families across Wales.

[Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)]

There is no VAT on food, so the VAT change did not affect the price of food, which is important to remember.

[Kevin Brennan]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and I am aware of that fact, but he will find that families spend their money on things that do attract VAT, which has a direct impact on their disposable income and, therefore, on their ability to buy food.

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[Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mrs Riordan. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) on securing an important debate.

Sometimes in debates about food banks, or poverty—urban or rural—I get the feeling that Government Members think we make things up or exaggerate them.

[Guto Bebb]

The accusation is not that the Opposition party is making things up, but that it is forgetting history, rewriting it and ignoring its own part in a situation that is desperate for many people in Wales.

[Chris Evans]

The hon. Gentleman has summed up my absolute frustration with the House since I came into this place. All those on the Government Benches seem to want to do is look into the past and blame the Labour Government for everything. I simply ask him to put himself in this position: if tonight someone cannot afford to feed his family, because he finds that he has no food and that his children are screaming for food, will they care whose fault it is? What they care about is where their next meal is coming from. Often in this House, we look more interested in trying to win cheap political points than in bringing about real political change for people who are suffering.

--- Later in debate ---

[Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for Islwyn (Chris Evans) for being so gracious as to allow me five minutes to contribute to the debate.

First, importantly, the work done by food banks is appreciated by all Members of the House. The political reasons behind the creation of food banks might be debated passionately, but their work is most welcome. I do not have a food bank in my constituency, but my children have contributed to and collected for the one in the constituency of the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams). We applaud food banks, because they show a community coming together to support the most vulnerable.

What is missing from the debate, however, is any attempt by the Labour party in Wales to provide a context. It has been a self-indulgent debate in many ways, in which attacks on Government welfare policies have been made completely out of context. We heard no comments whatever on the fact that in April 2007 there was one food bank in Wales, but by May 2010 there were 10; now there are 24 to 26, depending on which statistics are accepted, but the reasons are much more complicated than changes to benefits. If we look at benefits payments in Wales, my understanding is that when the Labour party came to government in 1997, the average employment and support allowance payment for a benefits recipient was 20% of the Welsh average income. By 2010, when the Labour party left power, that proportion was down to 17.2%, and it has since increased to 17.6%. Last year, benefits went up by 5.5%, the highest for some time.

We have to provide the context for why household budgets are being challenged. They are being challenged by forces beyond the control of any Government. Food prices have gone up 27% between 2007 and 2012; that is beyond the control of the Government. When I was in Washington last year, a crisis was hitting corn prices because of drought in the mid-west, but that type of thing is not in the control of our Government. Look at electricity and fuel prices. Prices are subject to VAT at 5%, just as they were throughout the entire period of the Labour Administration, yet electricity prices have doubled and gas prices have tripled since 2000. No Government can deal with that type of effect on people’s household incomes. No Government can respond in a sufficient manner to that type of price increase, which is beyond the control of any Government.

All we have heard from the Labour party have been accusations that all the difficulties were caused by Government changes. Time and again it is Government changes, even when those changes have not yet been implemented. We heard a lot about the so-called bedroom tax that will affect people’s incomes; it has not yet been implemented. The hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies) talked about the effect of universal credit; it has not yet been implemented. Blatantly political views have been expressed about people in desperate situations in Wales in order to score party political points. I find that most disappointing.

Even worse, the hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas), who is no longer in his place, stated that the coalition was responsible for cutting taxes to the wealthiest in society while punishing the poorest. That came from a Member who, I gather, voted to get rid of the 10% tax rate for the lowest paid in society and who was quite happy for capital gains tax to be paid at 18% by the wealthiest City financiers while their cleaners paid 22% tax. Those are the realities of what happened under Labour, but not a single comment has been made in the debate about that atrocious track record.

The worst thing that came out of the debate was the comment by an Opposition Member that we were creating a dependency culture. Labour Members are from a party that has been in government in Wales more or less since the end of the first world war, whether locally or nationally, and from a party that has failed Wales time and again, creating ghettoes of inequality within Wales. I cannot comprehend how they can with a straight face make the accusation that the coalition Government have, in two years, created a dependency culture. I find that staggering and unacceptable.

My final point is that this Government have presided over the creation of more than 1 million jobs in the private sector. Last week, a constituent on £71 jobseeker’s allowance visited me. That is no way to live—I am the first to acknowledge it, and I think every single Member in the Chamber would acknowledge that they could not and would not want to live on £71 a week. That is why it is so important for the Work programme and the support offered by the Government to get people back into employment. That is the real way to deal with the issue—not by point scoring about changes to this benefit or that benefit, but by acknowledging that a life on benefits is not something we should aspire to as a country. It is not something I aspire to for the people of Wales.

Time and again, we have heard from the Opposition party that everything would be okay if there were a Labour level of spending on benefits and welfare. The Government have much more ambition for the people of Wales. We want them to have the opportunity to work and take themselves out of poverty, not through dependence on the state but through their own efforts, and that is what we are creating.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Crabb]

Thank you, Mrs Riordan. In preparation for this afternoon’s debate, I did a bit of research.

[Guto Bebb]

Will the Minister give way?

[Stephen Crabb]

I will, quickly.

[Guto Bebb]

Does the Minister agree that the whole point of the debate is to cast aspersions on our motives as Conservative Members?

[Stephen Crabb]

That is exactly what it is about. I did some research before the debate this afternoon and looked at the parliamentary record, because I wanted to know what kinds of questions and issues were being raised on food banks by Members of different parties—not only from Wales, but from right across the UK. It might not surprise my hon. Friends to know that I could not find a single reference by a Labour Member of Parliament, before 2010, to food banks.