Food Banks

Sarah Gibson Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Gibson (Chippenham) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. I thank the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan) for securing this incredibly important debate, as shown by the number of Members present.

I agree with Members, who have spoken so eloquently today, that the guiding principle of the UK welfare system must be to ensure that no one is unable to meet their children’s basic needs for survival and participation in society. The social security system in this country is not working as it should, and it is driving people further into poverty and making families rely on food banks. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke) mentioned, the Trussell Trust alone delivered 3 million food parcels this year. From speaking to food bank organisers across my constituency, it is clear that donations are down but demand is up. As the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (David Williams) said, this is a failing in our country.

One of the major problems driving reliance on food banks is the increasing cost of living, which has not been helped by rising costs of energy. The churches in Corsham in my constituency organise a food bank, and as they say,

“There is no point having food if you do not have the energy to cook it.”

That is why that food bank is now also offering fuel vouchers of up to £40 a month throughout winter for those on pay-as-you-go meters, but rising energy costs mean that those vouchers are being stretched further. As my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe (David Chadwick) mentioned, that is leading to child poverty.

There is additional pressure on food banks during school holidays. While children are at school during the week, they are on the whole able to access free school meals, but in the school holidays, food banks are inundated with young families. On that basis, my Liberal Democrat colleagues and I find it astonishing that the Government refuse to lift the two-child benefit cap, which would lift half a million children out of poverty, as has been mentioned by hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber. By removing the cap, we would transform the lives of struggling families and help to reduce dependency on food banks.

As hon. Members have said, how we treat the most vulnerable in our society says a lot about our values. Asylum seekers have not yet been mentioned. A Liberal Democrat councillor and food bank volunteer in Corsham told me this weekend that the Home Office is giving asylum seekers only £35 a week to cover food, toiletries and clothing, so many are relying on food banks to survive. I would be grateful if the Minister could outline what actions are being taken to support the most vulnerable, such as asylum seekers and children, and to alleviate their reliance on food banks.

Furniture Poverty

Sarah Gibson Excerpts

Wednesday 6th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Gibson (Chippenham) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. I thank the hon. Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Sam Carling) for securing this important debate.

No one should fear for their future, struggle to put food on the table or worry about heating their homes. The cost of living crisis has been a huge financial hardship across the country and has restricted the lives and chances of millions. Furniture poverty is particularly common in social housing, and it is a scandal that only 2% of social housing is fully furnished. As a new MP, like the hon. Member for North West Cambridgeshire, I have already experienced two examples where I helped constituents out of homelessness and into social housing, only to find that they moved into homes that were not furnished. Unfortunately, that is all too commonplace.

I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Danny Beales) for sharing his personal experience of homelessness and indeed of furniture poverty. Unfortunately, I must agree with him that the experience is sadly commonplace. In my constituency, we see it regularly.

The End Furniture Poverty group considers flooring to be an essential item and with good reason. Without flooring, as we have heard, it is hard to keep a property clean and, if the property is old—in particular, if it was built before the 1980s—not having flooring will make rooms difficult to heat. As the hon. Member for North West Cambridgeshire mentioned, that flooring is often thrown out, which makes it even more ridiculous.

Vulnerable members of our community, when they move into a home that should be a new start, should not feel as if it is still under construction, but that is often how they feel. Like the hon. Member for Northampton South (Mike Reader), I have a background in construction, and I was grateful to him for sharing his insights on the fabrics, in particular his point about the lack of flooring being the cause of various environmental issues. We should not feel as if that is happening. One point that I would make is that wool carpets can be composted.

We still have 1.2 million people in the UK whose lives and homes are without flooring. In my constituency, where more than 44,000 people are struggling with fuel poverty and 17,000 pensioners are due to lose their winter fuel allowance, many people are forced into choosing between heating their homes or visiting and having friends. I take the very clear point that people suffer from social isolation due to lots of these issues, and they do not dare to let people into their homes. I am sure we have all seen that when canvassing, when someone hardly opens the door because they are scared to let people see what is behind it. That is bound to cause all sorts of quite serious issues.

For the record, I note that Wiltshire Money in my constituency has held focus forums on the subject of furniture poverty, and I applaud the charities working across Wiltshire that have worked so hard to find ways of alleviating poverty in all its forms. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned, the churches and charities are working hard, but the burden should not fall on them alone, and we are not doing enough.

I congratulate the hon. Member for North West Cambridgeshire on securing the debate and on raising this important issue. The Liberal Democrats are happy to support hon. Members on both sides of the House in any efforts to end the cost of living crisis and address furniture poverty as part of that goal.