Food Banks

Debate between Jonathan Ashworth and Andrew Selous

Wednesday 18th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[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.