Food Banks (Scotland)

Iain McKenzie Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Iain McKenzie (Inverclyde) (Lab)]

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

Put bluntly, food poverty across the UK is a national disgrace. The statistics are shocking and heart-rending. In Britain today, 13 million people live below the poverty line. In 2011-12, food banks fed more than 128,000 people nationwide—100% more than in the previous year. That has been driven by the rising cost of food and fuel, combined with static income, high unemployment and changes to benefits made by the Tory-led coalition Government. Those things are causing more and more people to go to food banks for help.

In Scotland, the number of families needing food banks has also risen by 100%, with nearly 3,000 people receiving food parcels since April this year. One charity alone has fed 6,000 people across Scotland. We now have a Dickensian situation, with many people in low-paid jobs, and people who rely on benefits, being forced to use food banks to feed their children and themselves regularly. The fact that 50% of those going to food banks are working is quite shocking, and it underlines the employment position across Scotland.

I want to focus on my constituency, where a new food bank opened less than three months ago for families falling below the poverty line. It is coming to the aid of local people who are struggling to find enough money to pay for food. It is working in partnership with the Elim church in the east end of Greenock. Those who know that area will know that it is not one of the most wealthy areas in my constituency, but it is certainly one of the most giving. I commend the church’s caring response to the hardship that is unfolding in and around its congregation.

I was delighted to assist members of the church with their fundraising the other week. I was also delighted to assist them outside supermarkets, asking for donations for those who are finding it difficult to feed themselves and their families. I have visited the church’s i58 food bank in Inverclyde, and for those not familiar with the Book of Isaiah and Isaiah 58, I should add that it deals with fasting and hunger. Staff at the food bank told me that more than 300 families had visited it in its first three months. They were worried because referrals to it had increased day by day, with more than 50 families visiting on just one day last week. Clearly, the situation is getting worse, as evidenced by the fact that demand is increasing so dramatically as we approach Christmas.

We have a Government in London who seemingly just do not care. Unfortunately, we have a Government in Edinburgh who are blind to everything except their obsession with the constitution. The ever-growing demand for food banks is a shocking sight in 21st-century Britain, and it shows what it truly means to live in Cameron’s Britain and Salmond’s Scotland at present. Neither Government has a credible plan to tackle the dreadful poverty that afflicts our nation.

The UK of the 21st century has people choosing between eating and heating, and for some there is no choice at all, because they can afford to do neither. There should be a national outcry, and tackling this issue should be at the heart of any Government’s programme. No child should go hungry in the UK, and no child, adult or pensioner should go hungry on Christmas day or any other day. Our Governments need to do more to eliminate the scandal of food banks.

[Dr Whiteford]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr McKenzie]

I have just finished.