Food Banks

Debate between Jim Cunningham and Jamie Reed

Wednesday 18th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

I regret to say that the laughter from some of those on the Government Benches during this debate says more than words ever could. I want to praise the work of those in my constituency who are doing so much to help those in need. The commitment of the volunteers in the food banks throughout Copeland and across west Cumbria in towns such as Whitehaven, Millom and Workington has been remarkable, and I should like to say thank you to them on behalf of my constituents. I also want to thank those who donate the vast amounts of food, without which the food banks simply could not operate.

The final verdict on any Government is based on how they treat the poorest in society during the hardest of times. The rise in the need for food banks is a horrifying indictment of this Government’s record, and it demands urgent action. The complacency of those on the Government Front Bench and of Ministers in the other place is as distasteful and unedifying as anything I have ever witnessed in Parliament. In July, Lord Freud seemed to suggest that the increase in the number of people using food banks was simply a result of the increased prevalence of the food banks. He claimed that he did not know which came first: supply or demand. He also claimed that there was an infinite demand for what he called “free goods”. In order to access the services of a food bank, a person or family needs to be referred by health services, local authorities or other groups that look after their welfare. I am not going to try to second-guess what was going on in the Minister’s mind, but he seemed to be implying that there was somehow an ambition to reach hardship, and a desire and aim for people to reach poverty in order to get a free basket of shopping to get them to the end of the week.

In order better to inform Members on the Government Benches how food banks actually operate, I shall give them a quick rundown. People who are forced to turn to food banks can receive help only a limited number of times. They go to the local food bank not to do their full weekly shop but because they need the bare essentials in order to get by. Many of those people will already have made extremely difficult decisions, such as whether to sit in a cold room rather than go hungry. There is no more harrowing example of that than the fact that one in five mothers in the UK regularly—not just once or twice a week—skip meals to feed their children.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Can we deal once and for all with one particular issue? It is partly right to say that food banks have been around for about 10 years, but the truth of the matter is that the Churches set them up to help refugees who were waiting for their asylum status to be confirmed.

[Mr Reed]

My hon. Friend makes a telling point.

The circumstances in which people have to seek assistance to feed themselves and their families are not usually simple. They often involve a combination of issues, which manifest themselves in a great deal of pain and pressure for those involved. For example, I have constituents who are cancer patients who are forced to use food banks as a result of various combinations of Government policies. I wish I could say that those were isolated cases, but they are not. I wish I could say the situation was improving, but it is not. There are no signs of things getting better.