Food Banks

Roger Godsiff Excerpts

Wednesday 18th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Roger Godsiff (Birmingham, Hall Green) (Lab)]

I was one of the lucky generation who was brought up in a country with a social market economy that was run by Governments—both Labour and Conservative—who believed that the state had a duty to provide a safety net for their citizens and should not abandon them to the instabilities of unregulated markets.

There was a post-war consensus of politicians, including many one nation Conservatives—I am talking about people such as Macmillan, Butler and Macleod—who rejected what Prime Minister Ted Heath called the “unacceptable face of capitalism”. Images of mass unemployment and soup kitchens—the repercussions of the 1929 stock market crash—were to be banished for ever. I never believed for one moment that 50 years later, I would be a Member of this House, living in a country with the seventh largest economy in the world, and discussing why 41,000 people in the west midlands and countless others throughout the country are having to rely on modern-day soup kitchens—food banks—to feed themselves and their families.

[Mr MacNeil]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to support his point. He is probably aware that the gap between the richest 1% in the United States of America and the rest of the country is now the largest since the 1920s, the very decade he mentioned. The incomes of the top 1% have gone up by 20%, while the incomes of the remaining 99% have gone up by only 1%. Those tectonic plates are changing.

[Mr Godsiff]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments, and I am aware of those facts.

In my constituency, the Sparkhill food bank feeds hundreds of people every week. I want to share with the House the comments of somebody who has used that food bank. She is a young lady who lives in the Moseley area of my constituency. She says:

“This time last year I was working full time in a well-paid job but lost my job. I found temporary work that ended in February this year. I also suffered bereavements and the breakdown of my long term relationship and ended up in receipt of benefits. I got into debt with all my utility bills and most of my JSA was used to pay npower and Severn Trent Water.”

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

I have been told by the food banks in Widnes and Runcorn in my constituency that they are seeing an increasing number of people without gas or electricity, which means that the food they can supply is inappropriate. They are now having to consider what type of food they provide. It is not a matter of what is donated but of what people can use.

[Mr Godsiff]

I agree exactly with what my hon. Friend says.

My constituent goes on to say:

“At my lowest I was living off £5 per fortnight…I eventually sought help and was referred to fantastic local charities who helped me deal with my debts and in turn referred me to Sparkhill Foodbank. I will never forget going to the foodbank, it was a humbling experience and I spent 40 minutes crying as I was so ashamed but the workers at the foodbank were fantastic and put me at ease whilst assuring me that my circumstances were not my fault and in no way a reflection of me as a human being.”

She then says:

“Luckily my circumstances are going to change for the better very soon as I have recently found a job…but I will never forget the kindness of strangers who helped me fill my belly in England in 2013.”

The Government ought to be ashamed of presiding over a situation in which such people must go through what that young lady, who is not feckless or a shirker, has had to experience. At the end of the day, lives will be scarred by the humiliation of forcing people into food banks—not just the lives of those individuals, but the lives of their children, too. Whatever the Government say, their MPs should be ashamed of that.