Food Poverty

Debate between Luciana Berger and Lisa Nandy

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[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.

Higher Education

Debate between Luciana Berger and Lisa Nandy

Wednesday 3rd November 2010 Westminster Hall

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

I, too, congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) on securing this timely debate.

I represent Liverpool, Wavertree, which has one university, Liverpool Hope, within its borders and two, Liverpool John Moores and Liverpool university, just outside. Many members of Liverpool’s student and academic community live in my constituency. Along with my hon. Friend the Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds), I am probably one of the Members who was most recently in the higher education system and I am still paying off my student loan. I was also one of the 500-plus candidates who signed the National Union of Students pledge not to vote for an increase in fees, and I will be upholding that pledge.

I recently met representatives of Aimhigher Greater Merseyside and I heard in great detail about the fabulous work that they continue to do across the region for 35,000 young people. As many of my hon. Friends have said, the goal of the Aimhigher programme is to widen participation in higher education and to encourage young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to apply for university.

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend join me in paying tribute to the work of Aimhigher not only on the issues that have been mentioned, but in providing advice and guidance to much younger children, who might never have thought about going to university? I am sure that there are far too many young people in her constituency, just as there are in my constituency of Wigan, whose talent and ability are not matched by their aspirations. Will she join me in urging the Minister to make sure that the invaluable work that Aimhigher does with young people from the ages of 13, 14 and 15 continues?