Food Banks

Jonathan Ashworth Excerpts

Wednesday 18th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)]

I want to speak only briefly. The hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns) mentioned the tone of the debate. Many of my constituents will be disappointed that the Minister, who is back in her place, showed no contrition whatever for the acceleration of food banks on the Government’s watch. The issue is not whether food banks existed four or five years ago, but the sheer explosion in the number of food banks and demand for them in the past 18 months.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is right. I have an excellent charity, the Irish Youth Foundation, in my constituency. It is using its capital money to set up emergency food banks, and to provide emergency aid and relief for desperate young people who are going without food. That has happened as a consequence of this Government’s policies.

[Jonathan Ashworth]

My hon. Friend makes his point with great eloquence.

Sadly, too many areas of my constituency appear too high up in the various deprivation statistics, and we have had an increase in demand for food banks. The Open Hands food bank in Highfields says it is doubling the number of food parcels it hands out. In the Saffron Lane area, there is an increase in the number of women going to food banks. Primary schools hand out food parcels to parents who are too ashamed to go to the food banks on their estates.

[Robert Halfon]

No one denies that there is a problem, but does the hon. Gentleman not accept that the Government are doing everything possible to alleviate it? That is why they have introduced free school meals for children in the first three years of primary school and extended free school meals to poorer students who go to further education colleges. That is why they have frozen council tax and fuel duty, are trying to cut energy bills and are linking the basic state pension with earnings. Are those not real examples of how the Government are helping with the cost of living?

[Jonathan Ashworth]

The hon. Gentleman must recognise that there is a huge cost of living crisis because of the downward pressure on wages. Increasingly, people in work, and people on benefits, are turning up at food banks because of a series of social security cuts implemented by the Department for Work and Pensions. The food banks in my constituency report increased usage because of the bedroom tax, and not just for food parcels—people who have had to move into private rented accommodation but do not have the appropriate furniture are going to food banks that provide furniture. Food banks report increased usage because of sanctions, delays in appeals and delays in benefit decisions. The Atos centre in my constituency does not have suitable disabled access, so people on employment and support allowance have to go to either Nottingham or Birmingham for their assessment. They cannot afford to do that, so they end up going without the ESA they deserve and turn up at the food banks in my constituency. That is a sad indictment of the condition of Britain under this Tory Government.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that figures released this week show an increase in diseases such as scurvy and rickets, and an increase in malnourishment? The Government should acknowledge that in the context of today’s debate. Frankly, it is disgraceful that we have not had a Minister from either of the main Departments sitting on the Front Bench for the whole of the debate.

[Jonathan Ashworth]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point that is worth repeating: there is an increase in those diseases in 21st century Britain under this Tory Government.

[Andrew Selous]

rose—

[Jonathan Ashworth]

I am sorry to the hon. Gentleman, but I am not going to give way again.

Of course, it is not just the food banks. I am proud to represent a tremendously diverse constituency, where all the gurdwaras report an increase in uptake by non-Sikh people who go to them daily for the food that they hand out. Our Muslim organisations and mosques are collecting food to be handed out in our food banks. For Government Members to say that that is all just a continuation of a statistical trend that has been going on for the past few years suggests that they are all completely in denial.

The Minister, who is now shaking her head, boasted that the Government have commissioned a study and a review. I hope that when the Minister with responsibility for the voluntary sector, the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd), responds to the debate—it speaks volumes that the Minister with responsibility for the voluntary sector will be responding to this debate, not a Minister from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs—he will undertake to produce that study, so that Members on both sides of the House can study it. I hope he will also tell us—I am sure the officials in the Box have the statistics—whether the Government, in their considered view, think that demand for food banks will increase or decrease in 2014 and 2015. That would be an interesting statistic and I look forward to the Minister outlining that in his summing up.

We are seeing a series of changes to the way social security works from the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, who stumbles around Whitehall with a bleeding hole in his foot and a smoking gun in his hand as all his different reforms collapse—universal credit and so on. A whole series of changes are affecting our constituents and driving the increased demand for food banks in our constituencies. For the Government not to acknowledge that suggests that they are completely out of touch and completely in denial.