Food Banks (Wales)

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2013 Westminster Hall

[Kevin Brennan]

It is because food banks were such a minuscule feature on the scene compared with what we see today, despite the Prime Minister’s erroneous use of statistics recently at Prime Minister’s Question Time, in an attempt to sidestep his failure to take note of the rise of food banks over a long period.

It is particularly apt to talk about the 1930s because we are reliving that period of austerity economics. The failures of, and false theories behind, austerity economics are being repeated. We might expect that from the Conservatives, but it is staggering that it is being repeated in the coalition by the party of John Maynard Keynes through its approach to the economy.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

Will the hon. Gentleman concede that income inequality grew under previous Labour Governments, as it did under previous Conservative Governments?

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan]

I will get a bit further into my stride before I let the hon. Gentleman have another go.

It is no coincidence that the three giants behind the creation of what became known as the welfare state came from Wales: David Lloyd George, Jim Griffiths and Aneurin Bevan. It is particularly ironic that the Government presiding over a policy that is helping to trigger the rapid expansion of food poverty and food charity for the poor are a Government who include members of the successor party to Lloyd George’s Liberals.

[Hywel Williams]

But is it?

[Kevin Brennan]

The hon. Gentleman calls into question whether the Lib Dems are the successor party. That is another debate for another day. Perhaps Lib Dem members of this Government should recall the words of David Lloyd George as we debate food banks and poverty. In presenting his “people’s Budget” 104 years ago, in 1909, he said:

“This…is a war Budget. It is for raising money to wage implacable warfare against poverty...I cannot help hoping and believing that before this generation has passed away, we shall have advanced a great step towards that good time, when poverty, and the wretchedness and human degradation which always follows in its camp, will be as remote to the people of this country as the wolves which once infested its forests.”—[Official Report, 29 April 1909; Vol. 4, c. 548.]

I am afraid that under this Government, the wolves of poverty are back, along with the sharks who prey on the financial misfortunes of the poor with their high-rate loans.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan]

I am still speaking.

The Government are following an austerity economics policy, rather than making the economic choice, as they could have done, to deal with the deficit in a way that would not have led to such poor growth and its consequences.

[Hywel Williams]

The hon. Gentleman may know that nine of the 23 food banks in Wales opened in the past 12 months.

[Kevin Brennan]

The hon. Gentleman has hit the nail on the head. That is what is so unfortunate about the Prime Minister’s attempt to use statistical shenanigans to disguise the fact that the real issue is the sheer number of people who now have to go to food banks. I compare that with the charitable aid that was on offer under the previous Government, and that will always be present in our society, one way or another, which is to be welcomed. It is the scale of what is being done, not what is being done, that is most important.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

It is ironic that we are debating this subject on pancake Tuesday. I am reminded of a song that we used to sing when we were kids, which my grandmother taught my mother. If hon. Members will forgive the Welsh, it went like this:

“Mae mam rhy dlawd i brynu blawd

A’m tad rhy wael i weithio”.

It translates as “My mother is too poor to buy the flour and my father is too ill to work.” Considering the dependence on food banks and the ravages that Atos is wreaking on our constituencies, those are chilling words. I will not say anything melodramatic, either, about Victorian values, but as I was on my way here it occurred to me that the words of that song had a message for us.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) on securing the debate. As he said, there are 23 food banks in Wales, and four of them are in north Wales. They operate in disadvantaged areas, although I am sometimes at a loss to decide which areas of Wales are disadvantaged and which are not, given that disadvantage is so widespread. As I said in an intervention, nine food banks were opened in the past 12 months, and I understand that there are a further four in development. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the number of adults and children who have at some point been dependent on food banks. The significant fact is that in 2011 there were 11,000 people in that position, and in 2012 there were 29,000; 2,500 families a month were referred in 2011, and in December 2012 that figure was nearly 5,000. There is a trend there.

The main reasons why people go to food banks, as we know, are that they have benefit problems: either their benefits are not paid, or they are paid late. That accounts for almost half the people who go to food banks. Others go because of debt or because they are homeless. Significantly, about 20% of those who go to food banks are working poor people. As someone else said, these are not the scroungers of the popular newspapers. The growth of food banks in Wales is a symptom of a much more fundamental problem: the growing inequality that I mentioned earlier, and a failure of wages and incomes to match the ever-increasing cost of living. There is a fundamental mismatch between people’s wages and what they need to pay for such basics as shelter, warmth, food, and clothing.

Food banks currently provide a vital short-term service and are not a long-term solution, even for the individual who goes to them. That must be borne in mind, if we think that there will be more dependence on food banks. However, they can be a life-saving service. I was glad to open the food bank in my constituency last year, and to meet the good people who give their time and effort to make the place work in the service of their fellow citizens. Their aims and the outcomes that they achieve are entirely laudable, but this is a matter on which the Government should lead. Food banks, if we have them at all, should supplement public provision; they should be a marginal support. It is astonishing, and a disgrace, that in the second decade of the 21st century, when we produce more food than we consume, and after all the advances that have been made in science and technology, we cannot make sure that people get sufficient food.

Food banks, obviously, are a marker of inequality. As I have said, benefits and tax credits have not risen in line with real inflation. However, in Wales there has also been a consistent decline in economic performance and in people’s ability to buy the food they need. The figures are quite stark: Wales’s gross value added per head compared to the UK average in 1997 was 78.1%, and in 2011 it was 75.2%—a decline of about 3%. For west Wales and the valleys—the poorest areas as defined by the European Union—the figure was 67.2% in 1997. It is now 65% and it is, alas, on the way down. Recent analysis by the Resolution Foundation has shown that between 1975 and 2010, the average annual year-on-year change for the bottom 10% was only 0.2%; for the top 1% there was a 2.4% year-on-year increase. Thus there is local decline, and also a decline in relation to class and income sector. As I have said, inequality grew, and has been growing since the 1970s. Some of that was perhaps partly affected by Mrs Thatcher’s policies, but that growth has been consistent.

Unfortunately, average household income in Wales is 12% lower than in the country as a whole. The UK Commission for Employment and Skills has forecast that Welsh economic growth will continue to lag 0.5% behind that of the UK as a whole; so there is a substantial historical problem that is growing. Food banks are not the answer to all that. The remedies are fairly easy to list: we need better economic growth and income distribution, particularly in the poorest areas. We in Plaid support the living wage, as we supported the minimum wage. We need to take steps to end fuel and food poverty.

I will not ask the Minister a long list of questions that he would find it difficult to answer, or demand that he fleece the rich and distribute the largesse to the poor, which he is clearly not in a position to do. I want to ask him for a tiny little step. Let us see whether as a matter of good will he can reply for the Government. It is about something that my hon. Friend the Member for Angus (Mr Weir) and I have been pursuing recently: a small step in relation to winter fuel payments. In response to an intervention by the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb), the hon. Member for Cardiff West talked about the importance of disposable income. If people could spend a bit less on fuel they would have a bit more to spend on food, so I ask the Government for a commitment to pay winter fuel payments a bit earlier. Then older people and people with disabilities would get their money to spend earlier in the year, and could get a better deal on coal or a tank of gas or oil. It is not a huge thing, and it would not cost a lot. Will the Minister give a positive answer to that question, as a measure of good will?

A last, brief point—but an important one—is that Wales is not a unique case in the UK or the European Union. We must look beyond our borders and Europe’s borders, and fight to provide food security for people all over the world.