Food Poverty

Debate between Meg Hillier and Luciana Berger

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.