Food Banks

Hywel Williams Excerpts

Wednesday 18th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

Thirty-three food banks operate in Wales and there are two in my constituency: one in Caernarfon and one in Bangor. In 2011, 11,000 Welsh people were dependent on food banks for limited help. The figure is now 60,000.

People often go to food banks because their benefits have not been paid, as the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) said. There are mistakes, benefits are paid late and people are sanctioned, sometimes wrongly. A man came to see me on Monday who had been sanctioned and had no money. He had been called for an interview, but was not able to go because he had to take his seriously ill wife to hospital for cancer treatment. He could not be 30 miles away at the same time.

[Ian Lavery]

A gentleman in my constituency faced the same circumstances. He was sanctioned when he was in hospital for a heart condition. He lived for a further three days on field mushrooms and borrowed eggs. Is that what we want to see in the UK in 2013-14?

[Hywel Williams]

The hon. Gentleman makes an eloquent point about the harshness of the current system.

Significantly, about 20% of the people who go to food banks are the working poor. They are not the scroungers and shirkers who are cited so enthusiastically by some hon. Members and by the popular newspapers.

The growth of food banks in Wales is a symptom of a much more fundamental problem: growing inequality and the failure of wages and incomes to match the increasing costs of living, particularly food inflation. That is a particularly acute problem in Wales, where gross value added in some areas is about 60% of the UK average.

[Mrs Moon]

Has the hon. Gentleman found that the working poor are finding it difficult to get basic products as well? My food bank has told me that people sometimes talk to staff quietly to ask whether they have toilet paper or sanitary products. It is not just food that people cannot get, but other expensive products.

[Hywel Williams]

The hon. Lady makes a fine point. I was at the food bank in Caernarfon recently. It provides a range of goods, and at Christmas it provides a few extras, which is very welcome.

Food banks provide a vital short-term service and they deserve our support. However, they must not be a general long-term solution for the individuals who go to them and they must not be a permanent aspect of public policy. Food banks, if we have them at all, should supplement public provision. It is astonishing and shameful that, in the second decade of the 21st century, one of the richest countries in the world cannot ensure that its people get sufficient food.

[Mr Andrew Love (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the hon. Gentleman recognise the importance of welfare benefits advice? We have heard that many food banks provide such advice, but many do not. Given that one of the reasons for the growth of food banks is the paucity of welfare advice, is that not an important consideration in this debate?

[Hywel Williams]

It is indeed. I pay tribute to the services that do exist, but they are patchy. Sometimes they are provided by local authorities and sometimes by volunteers. I mention in passing that the Child Poverty Action Group has made a pertinent point about the value of advice and the level of under-claiming, which is a persistent problem.

In Wales, there has been a consistent decline in economic performance and in people’s ability to buy the food that they need. The figures are stark. Wales’s GVA per head compared with the UK average was 78.1% in 1997. In 2011, it was 75.2%. That is a decline of three percentage points. For west Wales and the valleys, which the European Union recognises as some of its poorest areas, the figures were 67.2% in 1997 and 65% in 2011—a further decline. This is a substantial historical problem, and it is growing. I am sure the remedies are easy to list, and we have heard some already: better economic growth, better income distribution, particularly in the poorest areas, a living wage, and ending fuel poverty.

[Albert Owen]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Hywel Williams]

I must conclude my remarks; I apologise to the hon. Gentleman.

We call on the Government to publish the report commissioned by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on food bank use, and to commission further wide-ranging research into the rocketing need for food banks. I say to those on the Opposition Front Bench, however, that I cannot see how regional benefits would help.

My final point is brief but important and has not been mentioned so far. Wales is not a unique case in the UK, and certainly not in the European Union. We must look beyond our borders and those of Europe, and fight to provide food security for people all over the world.