Food Poverty

Luciana Berger Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure, Sir Alan, to serve under your chairmanship for the second time. I thank the Speaker’s office for the opportunity to raise this serious issue. It is less than two weeks until Christmas, which should be a time for people and their families to celebrate and relax. I want to speak on behalf of the thousands of households throughout the United Kingdom that will be worrying about whether they can feed themselves and their children.

We have seen the longest double-dip recession since records began in 1955, and we are in the midst of a cost of living crisis. We have seen an explosion in food poverty as households struggle with higher living costs, frozen wages, reduced working hours, and changes in welfare. The rising food poverty scandal is a national disgrace. I shall refer to two headline figures that I will talk about in more detail in a moment. Last year, the food redistributed by FareShare contributed to more than 8.6 million meals, and fed 36,500 people every day. The Trussell Trust, which operates a network of food banks throughout the country—I will speak about it in more detail in a moment—estimates that it will have fed 230,000 people in 2012-13. That is nearly double the number of people it fed in 2011-12, and the trust warns that Christmas is looking even bleaker for families on the breadline.

I want to speak about the extent of the problem, having given two headline statistics. What is the problem? FareShare states:

“Food poverty is suffered by people with low or no income with poor access to affordable nutritious food and who lack the knowledge, skills or equipment to ensure food is safe and prepared properly.”

We know from the latest Joseph Rowntree Foundation figures that 13.2 million people in the country live in poverty. A recent shocking report by Save the Children, which was released in September, just a few months ago, found that well over half of parents in poverty—61%—say that they have cut back on food. More than a quarter—26%—say that they have skipped meals in the past year.

Another serious issue that I will come to in more detail is that four in five parents in poverty say that they had to borrow money to pay for essentials, including food and clothes, in the past year.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. She referred to the Save the Children report, which states that one parent said:

“A year or so ago, we literally relied on any money we raised at car boot sales to pay for food for the week. Some weeks weren’t too bad, others were dire. The British weather decided how we lived that week (when it rained, the turnout at car boot sales fell).”

Is it not a tragedy in 21st century Britain that people must go to car boot sales to raise money for food to feed their family?

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, which I am sure is the first of many that will share personal stories about people’s experiences. I called for the debate because it is a national scandal that in the 21st century, in one of the world’s most industrialised nations, there is an explosion in food poverty and the creation of food banks. That is why I and many other hon. Members have raised the matter in Parliament, and will continue to do so.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. It was a great pleasure to join her on a visit to a food bank that serves both our communities. Aintree fire station in my constituency has asked local people for donations because, despite there being several food banks covering our area and the amount of food coming in, it is going out just as quickly. Does she think that it is an indictment of the Government’s policies that people must rely on handouts for healthy living?

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. We went to that food bank together, and we have been to many others. I will speak in more detail about my concerns for the future, but I have a snapshot of where we are at the moment. We have just had the autumn statement, and reports show that the poorest 10% in our communities will be hit even harder. I worry about the future, and that the figures will become even worse.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate, and on the excellent work she has done over several months. She is right to look to worsening times. Last week, I was told about a constituent who currently has £12 a week left with which to buy food after paying his bills. That is less than £2 a day, which is about to be wiped out by the bedroom tax, and means that he will lose £12 a week in housing benefit.

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. There is so much I could have included in my speech that I did not even reflect on the bedroom tax. It is a good point. I know many constituents who are affected. The problem on Merseyside, which is replicated throughout the country, is that the Government want people to move into smaller properties, and if those properties do not exist, our constituents will be hammered every week and will struggle to put food on the table.

[Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate, and on her work. On welfare reform, I draw her attention to the impending localisation of the social fund, and the impact on the very people we are talking about who, in times of crisis, have nowhere else to turn. Many of the changes facing us with the localisation of the social fund will make it more difficult for those people because the money is not ring-fenced, and a postcode lottery will develop throughout the country with different standards and approaches.

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising another point that I could have included, but did not have space. The issue will disproportionately affect the councils that have the least to spend. My council in Liverpool has been hit hardest of any council in the country. We have a 52% cut in controllable spend by 2015. When there is no ring fence, the council will have less money coming in and will have to make difficult decisions, essentially doing the Government’s dirty work. The social fund will fall by the wayside, particularly in areas where it is most needed.

[Andy Sawford (Corby) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is being very generous in giving way to many hon. Members who are rightly identifying the causes of the problem, and it is right that she will address some of those causes. I hope that she will also talk about some of the great work by local community and voluntary organisations, such as the brilliant food bank in Corby. I was pleased to welcome her when she visited it recently. Co-operatives do great work, and have a fine tradition of trying to reduce travel miles, improve sustainability, and help to drive down food costs. For example, 30% of their healthy products are on promotion at the moment, which is brilliant. We should welcome such initiatives, and perhaps my hon. Friend will comment on that.

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and for raising the vital work done by many organisations in our communities. However, I do not think we should have food banks. The country has 270 under the Trussell Trust umbrella, and we know that there are many more independent initiatives, such as that at the fire station in Aintree, because food banks cannot deal with the pressure they are facing. What has happened in 2012 that we need them? I hope that the Minister will address that.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Hackney has a food bank under the aegis of the Trussell Trust, as have many constituencies, and Magic Breakfast works in many of our schools. A primary and a secondary school have spoken to me recently about the problem of young people being able to afford lunch. At the secondary school, the head dips into her own pocket to help fund lunches in some cases, and in the primary school, when parents come in to say, “We cannot afford £9 a week per child for the school meals,” which are nutritiously cooked, good-quality food, often grown on site in that particular school, the head tries to find a way of funding at least one or two of the children, so that they do not lose out on those hot meals. Along with that cost, the bedroom tax is a big issue that will hit hundreds of families in my constituency. They are not all aware of that, so the case will get much harder.

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for that example of the vital work done by Magic Breakfast. The fact that schoolchildren in our country are coming to school having not eaten any food, and are therefore less able to concentrate, is a very worrying and difficult state of affairs. I hope that the Minister will respond to that point.

Before the fantastic contributions of my hon. Friends, I was talking about the extent of the problem. It is worth expanding on that, because it is important that the Minister hears about many of the different studies that have been made. A recent report by Netmums found that one in five mums is regularly skipping meals to feed her children. Tesco did research recently, finding that 10% of people interviewed have suffered from some form of food poverty in the last 12 months. Tesco had some interesting and startling figures:

“Almost one in ten people in the UK have skipped meals, gone without food to feed their family or relied on family or friends for food in the last year.”

Nearly half of those who said they had skipped meals—48%—said they had done so

“for the first time this year.”

I would like the Minister to reflect on that in his response. More than 51% of people who had skipped meals said that they

“were forced to go without food for two days or more.”

I remind Members that we are in 21st-century Britain.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Sir Alan, and I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate on a crucial subject. She was speaking about the impact of missing meals, but I am sure that she is also aware of the effect of families downgrading what they are eating. She may be familiar with the statistic that low-income families are eating 30% less fresh fruit and veg than they were in 2006. In his comments, I am sure that the Minister will want to address the hidden health costs to the whole population and to individual families.

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for that important intervention about the quality of food that people are able to purchase. One reason for that is food inflation, which I will talk about in a moment. We need to acknowledge that it is a contributing factor. It is restrictive, particularly when the cost of fruit and veg has gone up significantly, and it means that people have less access to healthier food.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree that although it is wonderful that we are able to stand up and give examples of what is happening in individual constituencies, it is sad that organisations have to undertake those roles. In my constituency, the Moses Project has two food banks, one of which targets hungry, homeless young men who have no hope for the future at all. Another organisation, A Way Out, is working to open several more food banks in the constituency. Charities and Churches seem to understand the problem. Can my hon. Friend explain why the Government do not seem to?

[Luciana Berger]

I hope that we will hear from the Minister in his response that he understands the extent of the problem. I will refer later to a debate that we held in January, when it is fair to say that the responses were pretty weak. I was able to ask the Chancellor about it yesterday and his response, which I will come to in a moment, was not very strong either. I hope that the Minister will acknowledge the responsibility of the Government to deal with this growing and exploding problem.

I want to extract one more point from the work done by Tesco. It looked at why people said they were skipping meals. The main reasons given—they are replicated by other organisations—were the rising cost of living or low income; 56% of people said that. Twenty per cent of people said it was because of an “unexpected bill or expense.” People just do not have the cushion if something comes up, perhaps damage to their property or if a landlord does not make some urgently needed repair; they have to fill in and they do not have the funds to pay for food. I am sure Members have anecdotal evidence from their visits to food banks, when they encounter people who have to access emergency food aid.

Other reasons were “paying off debts.” That was 15% of people. One thing that struck me was that 12% of people were skipping meals because of

“a reduction in working hours.”

What conversations has the Minister had with colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions about the changing profile of work in this country? We know that people are increasingly moving to part-time work or they are on zero-hour contracts. From week to week, they cannot budget or plan. People are really struggling. From speaking to a trade union representative, I know that in one Tesco store alone, there have been 30 requests for an increase in hours, specifically as a result of the change in working tax credits. Those extra hours do not exist, so people are really struggling to get by.

[Stephen Doughty]

Is my hon. Friend aware that the Trussell Trust said that less than 5% of its clients are homeless—on the absolute breadline; in fact the vast majority are working families who are struggling to make ends meet.

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, as I was about to make the same point. It is not the profile of people that we would expect; as he said, only 5% of the people accessing emergency food aid are homeless. It is the 95% that people just do not know about, and the Government need seriously to address that problem, as well as those who are homeless.

The problem has grown and exploded; I use the word “exploded” because the Trussell Trust’s figures show that the problem has increased tenfold since 2008-09. As I mentioned, close to a quarter of a million people are expected to have accessed food aid through a Trussell Trust food bank by the end of this financial year. FareShare, which is an organisation that I will explain more about in a moment, distributes food to what they call community food members, which are not only food banks, but hostels, old people’s homes, and breakfast clubs. It reports an average increase of 59% in demand for its services this year alone. At some of its depots, the increase in demand was as much as 90% or 100%, which builds on a 40% increase in the previous year. The Salvation Army has doubled the number of food parcels that it is giving out from food centres over the last two years, and Magic Breakfast, which I will talk about in more detail, has delivered more than 1 million free breakfasts. It reports a sharp rise in pupil hunger, and that working families are running out of food.

A number of Opposition Members have come to contribute to the debate, and I acknowledge that there are two Government Members. The issue does not just affect “poor areas.” It is a national scandal, as we have seen from the number of food banks across the country. It is a national problem. An article in The Guardian said:

“Foodbanks are thriving not just in Britain’s most deprived areas but in some of its wealthiest areas, like Poole in Dorset. The seaside town boasts some of Britain’s most expensive property but in April its local foodbank supplied food parcels to nearly 300 people—more than twice as many as in April 2010.”

We know that there are many food banks in counties such as Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Warwickshire, where people would never normally expect food banks. I hope we shall hear contributions from Members on both sides.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

The food banks around the country were initially set up in 2002, because the issue arose at that time. According to stats provided by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, food prices have risen in real terms by 12% over the last five years. This is not simply about now; it was going on under the previous Government as well.

[Luciana Berger]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I use the word “explosion” again to reinforce the point. If we look at the figures, which I have in front of me too, there is an explosion in the numbers that have been created. I am not proud of the fact that 26,000 people accessed emergency food aid under a Labour Government—don’t get me wrong—but if we look at the figures now, it is 10 times as many in two and a half years. The Government need to take some responsibility for that and acknowledge that this is an explosion of the problem, and it is only set to get worse.

[Stephen Doughty]

I endorse what my hon. Friend is saying. There has certainly been an explosion in the use of the provision in my constituency. We would not expect there to be a 100% increase in the use of food banks month on month in Cardiff, the capital city of Wales.

In Penarth, the more affluent part of my constituency, I visited a food bank collection point in the local Tesco and asked whether the parcels were going to other, more deprived areas of Cardiff; in fact they were for the Penarth area. That is deeply shocking. I am concerned that the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti) appears to be muddying the picture somewhat.

[Luciana Berger]

I will take an intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch.

[Meg Hillier]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way yet again. One of my largest local landlords has 250 families who will be hit by the bedroom tax. People are doing their best to help such people to get jobs and so on, but there will be a number of families with a shortfall. That is just one landlord in one constituency. Would my hon. Friend like to comment on any analysis that she has done, or thinks should be done, to assess the impact of that Government policy, which will have a direct effect on people’s ability to pay for food?

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I share her concerns—concerns that have been raised since the start of the debate—about the bedroom tax. I reiterate that the Government want people to move into smaller properties, but in many places across the country such properties do not exist and people will be penalised as a result.

I am very concerned about the cumulative impact of people having to pay the bedroom tax and everything else. I will talk in more detail about the impact of the autumn statement—the cumulative impact of everything. Many hon. Members have called on the Government to make a proper assessment of the impacts that their changes to taxes and benefits will have on the poorest in our society and on child poverty. It is very disappointing that the Government have refused to do that.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

First, I congratulate my hon. Friend on the debate and on the fantastic YouTube video that she made—it is a must-watch, particularly for those on the Government Benches.

To return to the point made by the hon. Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti), in my constituency there was a clothing bank that did some food provision. The circumstances of people using that provision before 2010 were incredibly different from those in which people are now using it. Yes, food banks, clothing banks and other provisions were in place before 2010, but through the recession, people did not need to access it. It is as a direct result of this Government’s policies on things such as cuts to local authorities that 260,000-plus people need these food banks.

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that intervention. I concur with all the points that he made.

I have talked in depth about the scale of the problem; now it is important to examine the causes. Many hon. Members have intervened to allude to the relevant points. I will reflect on a number of the causes. As I mentioned, rising food prices are a contributory factor. In the past five years, food prices have gone up by 12% in real terms, with the cost of essentials such as fruit, milk, cheese and eggs rising by as much as 30%. Last year, food inflation in the UK was the highest in the EU outside Hungary, putting an average of £233 a year on the average household food bill.

[Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)]

I, too, pay tribute to the hon. Lady for securing the debate. Does she agree that food price fluctuation is almost as difficult and dangerous to deal with as a steady rise in food prices? We have been subject to great fluctuations in food prices—certainly over the past five years, if not longer.

[Luciana Berger]

I acknowledge that food prices are a problem. I have given the figures: they have gone up by 12% in real terms. That obviously has an impact on household budgets and on the choices that people can make about the food that they eat.

[Meg Hillier]

The issue of food prices is important. Sometimes in government, especially from this privileged seat in Westminster, it is possible to forget what the real choices are for families on the ground. In my constituency, four pints of milk cost £1.35 in the Co-op, because it gives farmers a fair deal, £1.08 in Tesco and £1 in Iceland. There are people who will step across the road to save 8p on four pints of milk, because that is the margin that they are working on.

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I can also share a story with the House; this may be something that other hon. Members have experienced. A number of us travel back to our constituencies on a Thursday, and I often do my shopping in my local Asda on a Thursday night. I am sometimes there at 10 or 11 o’clock at night if I have been to an evening engagement and I see people waiting for the knock-down-price milk. They wait there for the price of the milk to go down to 11p. People know what times to come in for the different items, and I have seen people fighting over items in the knock-down-price section. That breaks my heart, and there are other such examples. More Ministers need to see what that is like and why people have to make those choices.

[Kate Green]

I am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend again, but I have one final point. The issue is not just the financial hardship, but the humiliation—the degradation. People feel demeaned by the fact that they are forced either to accept handouts or to buy low-priced, cut-price, poorer-quality food. They do not have the dignity of participating in the way the rest of us can.

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. The knock-down-price items are not necessarily things that I would like to eat, but for some people that is the only choice that they have.

When a food bank voucher is issued, people have to tick a box to explain why they are going to that food bank. I will talk more in a moment about the vouchers, but there were two main reasons why people were referred to food banks in 2011-12. The biggest reason was benefit delay: 30% of people nationally gave that reason when the Trussell Trust aggregated the reasons why people were going to food banks. It is higher in my own constituency; I will come to those figures in a moment. Low income was the second main reason, at 20%.

I will say a little about DWP figures. I know that this matter is not directly under the Minister’s control, but it is particularly relevant to this debate. The DWP has something called the AACT—average actual clearance time—target. It says that it aims to ensure that people get income support within nine days, jobseeker’s allowance within 11 days and employment and support allowance within 14 days.

If someone has no money and suddenly finds themselves in a desperate situation, those waiting times are difficult enough, but we know that 45% of professionals referring families and adults for food packages cited troubles and delays with benefits, that that figure was up from about 40% the year before and that it had more than doubled since the recession began.

The DWP has issued a response to the figures; this was in The Guardian on 16 October 2012. It stated:

“In response to the figures, a DWP spokesperson cited the fact that 80% of benefit claims were turned around in 16 days,”

so it is not even meeting its targets.

[Alex Cunningham]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Luciana Berger]

Could I finish? Forgive me.

I asked the question: what about the 20% of people who do not get their benefits within the 16 days? Those are the very people having to access emergency food aid. I know from speaking to many of the volunteers who run the food banks, not just in my own constituency but in other places, that their anecdotal evidence is that when the food banks opened a few years ago, people had to wait two weeks for their benefits, but now it is up to six to eight weeks. I reiterate the point that if someone has no money for six to eight weeks, they have no money. How on earth are they expected to live?

[Alex Cunningham]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way to me again—and feel chastised as well. To be serious, that tremendous delay in people receiving their money is a tragedy, and of course it drives people into the arms of the loan sharks, both legal and illegal, which sucks even more money out of their purses and wallets when they want to be feeding their children. Does my hon. Friend agree that the work done by our hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) is essential as we go forward to protect people who are hungry?

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that intervention. I will come to the point about the amounts that people have to spend on emergency finance. I mentioned before that four out of five people who were struggling to eat also took out a short-term loan. That is adding to their costs, which means that they cannot spend money on food.

[Robert Flello]

My hon. Friend is being most generous with her time. I am thoroughly enjoying her speech. Before she moves on from the delays in getting benefits, I want to mention the growing problem of people who have been on employment support allowance and are told, “Sorry, you no longer qualify.” Their higher level of benefit suddenly drops and they can be waiting not months, but a year or more for the decision to be reversed, which most of the time it is.

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that important point. A number of hon. Members here will have had constituents come to see them in clear need of employment support allowance. They have to go through the whole tribunal process to get the result they were expecting in the first place. While all that is happening, months go by and they have literally nothing. If they have no support structures, family or friends, they will struggle to eat.

I reinforce the point about delays in benefit payments because people say that it is the main reason why they struggle to eat, but the issue is also about income. The incomes of low and middle-income families declined by 4.2% between 2010 and 2011 and, according to the autumn statement, people are expected to face a 1.2% reduction in their post-tax income in 2015-16. There is a cumulative effect and a negative impact on people’s income, the choices they can make and the food they can buy.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) mentioned payday loans and their cost. The number of payday loans has grown by 300% in the past two years, according to figures from the debt counselling charity, StepChange Debt Charity. About 5 million people now have to rely on legal loan sharks to make ends meet. I find that staggering. Legal loan sharks make huge profits off the back of lending to people at excessive interest rates of up to 16,000%. We have all heard of Wonga. This year, it made £45 million in pure profit and its main director took home a salary of £1.6 million.

I shall give just one story: a constituent got themselves into trouble trying to make ends meet and their repayments are now more than their take-home salary. That is a tragic state of affairs. Research last month from R3, the insolvency organisation, found that 8% of consumers said that they expected to take on a short-term loan to meet their costs over the coming weeks, which is particularly significant in the run-up to Christmas. Its research also shows that over the past six months, one in 10 had prioritised paying back a payday loan over paying for food.

I spoke a little about the extent of the problem and why people are affected, and other Members have mentioned it too. I return to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth made about the kinds of people who have to access food banks; it is not only the homeless or the out-of-work, as we might expect. I am sure we all have stories about when we went to food banks and heard first hand from those who have to access emergency food aid—there are as many in work as out of work. For many, food poverty is the product of a toxic combination of low wages, austerity economics, spiralling food prices, lengthy delays to benefit payments and cuts to working tax credit.

Government figures show that lower-income households are being hit hardest by price rises. They now spend about 15.8% of their income on food, which is nearly 3% more than the average household. Jobseeker’s allowance for a single adult is currently no more than £71 a week, leaving little over £1.50 a day for food. What happens if there is an emergency and someone has to pay for something? It leaves them with little or nothing to pay for food.

The picture is not much better for those in work. Apply the same calculation to a full-time worker on the minimum wage, and, after tax, they are left with just £4.66 a day for food. It is very difficult to eat healthily and properly on such small amounts.

Hon. Members have mentioned Magic Breakfast. I want to labour this point because food poverty is hitting children at school—children are going to school without food in their stomachs. Magic Breakfast is the largest provider of free healthy breakfasts in England. Last year alone, it provided more than 1 million healthy breakfasts, in 205 schools, to children who would otherwise have started the school day hungry.

With The Guardian, Magic Breakfast surveyed 600 teachers in June on their experience of pupil hunger. The figures are so distressing: 83% of teachers said that they saw evidence of pupil hunger in their classes in the mornings and 55% of them said that they had seen an increase in hungry children in their classes. When asked why more children were arriving at school hungry, they said that they believed that the biggest factors were general poverty, pressure from the cost of living and a lack of cookery skills and nutritional knowledge.

I shall reflect a little on my constituency. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) made some points about the food bank we went to in north Liverpool. I shall look at the scale of the problem in my locality; other hon. Members will talk about areas and communities that they represent. North Liverpool food bank serves my constituency and the constituency of my hon. Friend. Until 11 December—not even the whole year—it had issued 1,644 vouchers and fed 3,470 people, 1,272 of whom were children. The most common reasons for going to the centre were delays in benefits, 32.1%, and the refusal of a crisis loan.

I have not talked about the refusal of crisis loans yet, and other hon. Members may have stories of their constituents trying to access a crisis loan because they found themselves in crisis. I have heard stories from constituents who have spent all day on the phone trying to get through to the crisis loan number—they can no longer apply at the job centre—but they could not get through, so they had no money and could not eat.

Central Liverpool food bank, in my constituency, issued 2,051 vouchers and fed 3,900 people, 1,307 of whom were children. Comparing November 2011 with November 2012, the bank has seen a 114% increase in the number of vouchers given out a month. It is striking.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

This has proven to be an excellent debate so far. In Bristol, the police are giving out vouchers to people caught shoplifting. Some might criticise that as being soft on crime, but I think it is an excellent initiative. They realise that people are shoplifting because they simply cannot afford to feed their families any other way. It is terribly sad that we are in a country and a society where such things have to happen, but does my hon. Friend agree that the police should be commended for that scheme?

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. We all have stories about the increase in shoplifting for food. The police in Bristol are running that initiative and I wonder whether other hon. Friends have examples of the police doing that in other cities. I do not know whether they are doing it in Merseyside. I will ask my chief constable.

I reflected on food banks in my area; I have used a lot of statistics and I will talk in a moment about the stories. I am conscious of the time. My speech is taking quite a while. No one walks into a food bank with their head held high. If anyone has heard their stories, they will know that people go to food banks feeling ashamed. We must acknowledge and recognise that.

I have been to the Merseyside depot of FareShare, which I mentioned. FareShare is a fantastic organisation that collects food at the point of production if it is a bit damaged or there is surplus. It distributes it to a network of not only food banks but other organisations, such as Churches, community groups and homeless shelters. FareShare Merseyside alone is redistributing 18.5 tonnes of food every month. It has seen a 50% increase in demand for food since July. I have seen it for myself. I have seen the board; it has a very long list of groups waiting to sign up, but it does not have the food to provide them with.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way, because I know she is under time pressure. One initiative, piloted in Bristol, worked with organisations such as FareShare and FoodCycle, to develop a database of exactly where food waste was, so that it could be linked with the outlets and donated to people in need. It was initiated after a Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs summit. The supermarkets agreed to take part, because they were worried about legislative action—my Food Waste Bill—compelling them to give such food to charity. Now that the threat of legislative action is receding, it seems that supermarkets are less willing to participate in the pilot. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is a great shame and that we need to make sure that food that is going to waste is linked up with people in need?

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I was going to raise the point in my conclusion, but I will reflect on it now. A good trial is going on in her area, and we hope it will be replicated across the country when the results are complete. Yes, all supermarkets have a responsibility to do everything not only to minimise the food they waste but to ensure they waste none whatever so that people can benefit. That is a separate issue, which needs to be dealt with by itself, and it will not necessarily address all the issues of food poverty. However, I wholeheartedly support what my hon. Friend said, and I hope the Minister can respond.

I want to take a moment to share some stories about constituents who are in this predicament, because it is important that we personalise the issue, rather than just using figures. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Robert Flello) for referring to my film about food poverty, which I made because I was so distraught after January’s debate; indeed, now is perhaps a good time to reflect on what happened during that debate. The Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Newbury (Richard Benyon), who has responsibility for the natural environment and fisheries, singled out myself and my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy)—I do not know whether my hon. Friend recalls this—saying

“it is ridiculous to say that the rise in the need for food banks is attributable to this Government”—[Official Report, 23 January 2012; Vol. 539, c. 80.]

I contest that 100%, and that is what motivated me to make my film, to carry on campaigning and to have this debate, although I should add that several other Members also called for it.

I want to reflect on people’s stories about why they have to access emergency food aid. In my film, I spoke to Patricia, who had been employed her whole life after leaving school. In her last job, she had worked for 22 years as a bookkeeper. She has only ever contributed and only ever wanted to play her part and to work. Having been in her post for 22 years, however, she was made redundant because of the cuts to local authorities. Of the past 13 months, she has worked for just two, despite making literally hundreds of applications. She cannot afford the internet, but she is in the library every day trying to seek employment, and she goes for interviews and all the rest of it. I went to Patricia’s small flat, and I saw at first hand that it was cold, that the cupboards were bare and that there was nothing in the fridge. She had £3.60 in her wallet to last her for the week. It is people such as Patricia—the strivers, who want to make a contribution and who have worked all their lives— who have to hang their heads in shame and go to a food bank.

I met a man who had been in hospital having heart surgery when his benefits were stopped. When he came out, he found that his electricity pre-payment meter had run out; he had left a light on, but someone had burgled his home anyway. A district nurse issued him with a food voucher because he had no food in his stomach and had not eaten for two days. Although still recovering from heart surgery, he walked four miles in the freezing cold and rain to access emergency food aid.

In addition, I met a single father of three who was trying to do the best for his family. Someone had said, “Here’s a food voucher so you can feed your children.” He had gone without food for more than two days to feed his kids. That is the reality that too many of our constituents face. I hope the Minister will not give us a similar response to his colleague, who told us that it is “ridiculous” to say this problem is attributable to the Government. I do attribute the blame to this Government, and the fact is that all those charities have to step in and fill the gap.

I was looking through the press, and I want to mention some of the stories and headlines. In just the past three months, we have seen headlines such as “Desperate people facing 20-mile hike for food” in the Metro. The Sunday Express—these are papers we would not expect to talk about these stories—had the headline, “3m people starving in the UK: Parents having to choose between eating or heating.” In the Daily Mail, we saw the headline “Schools teach cookery on Fridays so hungry children from families too poor to eat have food for the weekend.” Another headline referred to the fact that 10% of families do not have enough food. Other headlines included, “Mum starves herself to feed kids—and re-wraps their toys as Christmas presents” and “Demand for food parcels explodes as welfare cuts and falling pay hit home.” The Yorkshire Post ran the headline, “Rising food prices raise fears of a ‘hidden hunger epidemic.’” The list goes on. It is a really sad indictment.

I have mentioned some of the organisations involved. FareShare does a fantastic job of providing food to 722 community food members. The Trussell Trust has 270 food banks, and there are other food banks that are not included in that figure. The trust provides three days’ worth of nutritionally balanced non-perishable foods, and 90% of the food given out by the food banks is donated by the public.

I reiterate that people cannot just turn up at a food bank and ask for food; they need a food voucher issued to them. I and a number of other MPs are in the difficult position of being able to issue food vouchers to our constituents if we feel that they are in need. It is a difficult and sensitive situation to broach; sometimes when I meet constituents I feel that I really have no choice but to softly ask whether they want food vouchers. I can tell that constituents are ashamed and embarrassed, but they take the voucher because it means they will get to eat properly.

[Stephen Doughty]

If I might reflect on what my hon. Friend has just said, food parcels are extremely basic: they include basic rice and basic pasta—there is nothing glamorous in them at all. Other charities are doing equally important work in offering hot, nutritionally balanced meals, with meat, veg and everything else, rather than just what we find in a food parcel. I note that the audience includes colleagues from the Salvation Army, which runs a fantastic community café in my constituency called Grub In A Tub. The café provides nutritionally balanced meals for £3, and people go there every day to get warm and to get a hot meal inside themselves. I commend the work that such organisations do on top of the work being done by the food banks.

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for commending the work of the Salvation Army. I mentioned Magic Breakfast. He is right to suggest that the food from a food bank is non-perishable and not fresh; it is tinned fruit, vegetables, meat and fish, as well as pasta, cereal and UHT milk, so it is nothing glamorous. I also commend the work of FoodCycle, which provides fresh meals for people across the country. Its network of three cafés is growing, and it does a great job using food that would otherwise go to waste.

I know that supermarkets have to play their part, but I would like to take a moment to commend their recent work on making food collections, which several of us will have been involved in. At the start of October, Sainsbury’s, in partnership with FareShare, did a national collection, collecting 2 million meals from its customers. As customers came into its stores, they were given a list of things to collect, and they donated them afterwards. Six hundred volunteers helped in that exercise. Only last week, the Co-operative group teamed up with the ITV breakfast show “Daybreak” and the Salvation Army for the “You CAN Help” food campaign. I went to my local Co-op store and saw the cans being collected, and I made a contribution myself. The final figure for the collection is not known exactly, but it is expected that more than 110,000 cans will be redistributed across the country.

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. I commend the work supermarkets are doing in partnership with charities—I had hoped to make this point later—but they must make sure they are not part of the very problem she talks about by paying people poverty wages or giving them zero-hours contracts and only part-time work. Obviously, it is commendable that supermarkets are doing something to try to deal with the problem once it is created, but they must make sure they are not part of the problem in the first place.

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I agree. Some supermarkets are a lot better than others in terms of the contracts they give out. Not every supermarket has taken part in food collections. It is important to add that Sainsbury’s and Tesco both made sure that they did not make any profit from the collections that they made. Of course supermarkets have a massive role to play in many ways, including ensuring that their staff are not living on poverty wages.

I was at the Tesco collection in my constituency last week, at the store that collected more than any other in the country. People were incredibly generous. We collected 15,000 meals at the store in Allerton road. Tesco collected 2 million meals and gave a 30% top-up. The public have shown tremendous generosity, but we should not have to have such collections.

I want quickly to reflect on the future. I have spoken about people in work who are in poverty and mentioned the Joseph Rowntree Foundation figures of the other week. There are in this country more people in poverty who are in work than there are out of work. That is important, and the Government should reflect on it. We have had the autumn statement; we did not get an answer from the Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s Question Time, but we know from analysis done by the Institute for Fiscal Studies that 60% of the people who are most affected are those in working households and that the poorest 10% of the population will have the biggest percentage drop in their incomes because of the autumn statement. Many organisations have raised serious concerns about how that will affect what happens. Barnardo’s talks about families that currently exist on only £12 per person and are worried about the future.

Yesterday, as reported in column 152 of Hansard, I asked the Chancellor whether he was ashamed that by the end of this year, on his watch, 250,000 people would obtain emergency food aid. I was disappointed that he did not want to reflect at all on the substance of my question and the serious issue that people face. He referred only to having to deal with the economic challenges. I urge the Minister to think long and hard, particularly now that we are in the run-up to Christmas, about what the Government can do to help not only the people in our society who are most in need but the people we least expect to find suddenly in desperate and difficult circumstances.

I do not know whether the Minister has visited a food bank. Perhaps he will tell us whether he has been able to see one at first hand and speak to people who must obtain emergency food aid. My hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) made a good point about the role that supermarkets should play in redistribution and in preventing the waste of food. That important issue needs to be dealt with. However, I would like to know what the Minister is doing and what conversations he has with his colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions, particularly about delay in benefit payments, which is the largest contributory factor in the need to get emergency food aid. What conversations has he had or what representations has he made to his colleagues in the Treasury, in the light of the autumn statement, about the fact that the poorest in society will be hit hardest? My concern is that the situation will only get worse if the Government do not do something serious about it soon.

[Sir Alan Meale (in the Chair)]

We have had a full debate so far, and the hon. Lady was generous in giving way more than 20 times. The subject is important, and five hon. Members have written to ask to take the floor. I must call those Members, but the two Front-Bench Members must also speak, so if there are any interventions, can they be brief, and will those called to speak try to leave a little time for their colleagues to make their points?