Food Banks

Lisa Nandy Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

I want to start by saying that it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) and that I agreed with so much of what he said. I also want to say that, to be fair, the Minister is right to acknowledge, as we do on this side, that some of the problems that are propelling people in this country to food banks have deep roots and a long history that goes back beyond the time his Government have been in office. However, we simply have to acknowledge the explosion in the scale of the problem in recent years.

We cannot have a sane and sensible debate about how to resolve the problem if Ministers refuse to acknowledge that over the past four years the number of people relying on Trussell Trust food banks alone—there are many other food banks around the country—has gone up from 41,000 in 2010 to nearly a million now, and that in those years we have seen food banks such as the Brick in my constituency springing up to fill need and demand.

Many people are too frightened or humiliated to go and ask for help, and the British Red Cross—more used to working in countries torn apart by war, famine and disaster—is launching its first-ever emergency appeal in this country, one of the richest countries in the world, to feed and clothe our children. We should be ashamed of ourselves. We have to start by acknowledging that and the heartbreaking reality, as all my hon. Friends who have visited food banks in their constituencies will know, of a nation that will not feed its children.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a very good speech, as always. There is agreement across the House about how well food banks are performing, how well organisations such as Tesco are doing and how generous our constituents are in giving money and food to food banks. Does my hon. Friend agree that what is missing on the Government Benches is the anger at the fact that we have food banks in this country? That is what I saw when I was collecting at Tesco in Brook Green—that people are so concerned.

[Lisa Nandy]

The Minister’s warm words and praise for many of the charities running those food banks would be a lot more convincing if his Government had not just tried to gag them to prevent them from speaking out by passing the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014, which we will repeal.

One of the reasons why we have such a problem is that the safety net that those charities campaigned for and that we built during the previous century has been allowed to collapse in this century. What was provided once as a right is now provided as charity. That, in the end, is what lies behind the humiliation facing many of the people forced to walk miles to go to food banks and the gnawing anxiety that they live with daily, not knowing where their next meal will come from.

[Robert Flello]

Is my hon. Friend as shocked as I am by a recent case, typical of so many, of a couple who told me that their mother—an elderly woman who had been feeding them because they could get no support—had had to go into hospital suffering from malnutrition?

[Lisa Nandy]

Indeed. My hon. Friend is right.

In the short time available to me, I want to talk about the solutions to these problems. The first solution, which tackles a long-term trend, is that work must pay. Far too many people have been forced into work that is low-wage and zero or small-hours. One of my constituents wrote to me before this debate and said that she was forced into a job where she was given, on average, only 15 minutes of work a day over the course of a week, and that £1.10 a day did not even cover the cost of her bus fare. When she left that job she was sanctioned, got into debt and ended up having to go to a food bank. The solutions are obvious: raise the minimum wage and encourage firms to pay the living wage.

When the Minister went to Tesco, did he ask that company why it does not pay all its staff a living wage? I would be interested to know. Those who claim to be part of the solution can also be part of the problem. It is the Government’s job to set the tone of what we expect from our major employers. In communities such as mine, there are real issues about the number of jobs available. If the Government do not invest to create jobs, it is no use telling people to get on their bike and go and get a job.

The second thing that Ministers must do is rebuild the safety net. I do not know whether the Minister understands how much damage the bedroom tax has done to people in communities such as mine. It must be scrapped immediately. The benefits delays that my hon. Friends have mentioned are so important. I have people in my constituency who are waiting six months just to get an assessment for employment support allowance. On top of that, the universal credit has been introduced. In principle I support it, but many people are now managing budgets that they never had to deal with before, and it has propelled many of them not just into debt, but into the arms of payday lenders—payday lenders that this Government refuse to do anything about.

If Ministers were at all interested in the experiences of my constituents, which they do not appear to be as they seem to be talking together, they would learn that the culture in the jobcentre—

[The Minister for Disabled People (Mr Mark Harper)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Lisa Nandy]

No, I will not give way. It is about time Ministers listened, rather than trying to tell us that there is no problem in this country.

The cultural change that is needed in the jobcentre, which routinely strips people of their rights and their dignity, will come from getting rid of the unofficial targets for sanctions and restoring adviser discretion so that organisations can work with people, not against people, in their search for work.

I will say this to the Minister, now that he is finally paying attention to what I am saying about the experience of my constituents: what a waste this all is! He talks about food banks. Well, I will tell him something. There is a growing recognition across all the political parties that in the current economic climate we desperately need to harness the talents, the passion and the energy of people in every community, to make this country fairer, stronger, better and more sustainable. Instead, we have charities—cancer charities and children’s charities. Instead of supporting people at the hardest time of their lives, we can do little more than feed and clothe the children in one of the richest countries in the world. What a tremendous waste it all is!