Food Banks

Debate between Maria Eagle and Neil Carmichael

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Maria Eagle]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. We have already noted the number of people who are forced to rely on food banks even though they are in work. That is not right in this day and age, and he illustrates that very well with his own experience.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

We all recognise the full damage that the Labour Government did to public debt, but there is another area of debt of great concern—household debt, which stacked up radically and significantly during the last years of Labour government. Does the hon. Lady think that that had any impact on what is happening now?

[Maria Eagle]

The reality is that debt is a reason why people go to food banks—about 13% do so—but 45% to 60% of people go to food banks because of benefit changes, disallowances and sanctions. That is part of Government policy, and something that the Government could tackle if they had the will, which they clearly do not. They refuse to accept any responsibility, despite the fact that their policies are making the situation worse. They refuse to accept that as a Government they have a moral obligation to act to alleviate these problems.

Just look at what Ministers have said. They show no understanding whatever of how a lack of money affects the lives of people struggling to make ends meet. The welfare reform Minister, Lord Freud, said last summer that

“food from a food bank—the supply—is a free good and by definition there is an almost infinite demand for a free good”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 2 July 2013; Vol. 746, c. 1072.]

Lord Freud appeared unaware of the fact that people cannot just turn up at a food bank and get food: they have to be referred, and half of them are referred by statutory agencies. When pressed on 4 March this year in the other place, he opined that

“clearly nobody goes to a food bank willingly. However, it is very hard to know why people go to them.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 4 March 2014; Vol. 752, c. 1215.]

From ignorance to indifference in a few short months—and he is the Minister for welfare reform. If he really does not know why people go to food banks, I can tell him: it is because they are desperate and have no food to eat and no money to buy it.

The Chancellor, meanwhile, suggested that increased awareness explained the relentless rise in food bank use. He told the Treasury Committee in July last year:

“I think one of the reasons that there has been increased use of food banks is because people have been made aware of the food bank service through local jobcentres.”

The Government Chief Whip last September preferred to suggest that it was the fault of poor people themselves:

“There are families who face considerable pressures. Those pressures are often the result of decisions they have taken which mean they are not best able to manage their finances.”—[Official Report, 9 September 2013; Vol. 567, c. 682.]

Baroness Jenkin was forced to apologise just last week for suggesting that increased use of food banks was because:

“Poor people don’t know how to cook”.

Perhaps the most revealing quote is from the sneerer-in-chief himself, the Work and Pensions Secretary, who said in January this year:

“I think it’s a positive thing for people to use food banks”.

He went on:

“There are complex reasons why people use food banks but I think it’s excellent.”

So there we have it: it is part of this Government’s strategy to replace the social security safety net, which the Work and Pensions Secretary is demolishing. He is doing this in pursuit of the ambition of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor to take us back to levels of public service spending and provision not seen since the 1930s. It is part of this Government’s ideological obsession with shrinking the state to replace social security with charity. What a disgrace!

Only by tackling the cost of living crisis can we begin to see the numbers of people relying on food banks decline. If things are going to change, the country needs a Labour Government. We will legislate to freeze energy prices and reform the market to stop energy companies from ripping people off.