Category: #FoodBankBritain

#FoodBankBritain

Parents are starving themselves for up to a week to feed their children

From Welfare Weekly: Struggling parents are starving themselves for up to a week so they can afford to feed their children, a foodbank manager has claimed.

Matt Dobson, manager of Bristol Foodbank, says some parents, many of whom are in full-time employment, are arriving at the charity showing symptoms of hunger and starvation such as dizzyness because they’ve hardly eaten for an entire week.

He also claims that some parents are so hungry when visiting the foodbank that they devour the contents of food parcels in front of others and before leaving the center.

[Read full article on Welfare Weekly…]

United Nations rapporteur: “Open your eyes, there is very real poverty out there”

From Channel 4 News: UN special rapporteur Philip Alston talks about his investigation of poverty in the UK…

“Thousands of foodbanks haven’t sprung up because people are looking for things to do. There’s very real poverty out there.”

Tory government ministers? “They were pretty much unconcerned. They think their policies are working.”

"Open your eyes – there is very real poverty out there."UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston says there are people in…

Posted by Channel 4 News on Friday, November 16, 2018

Universal Credit leading to rise in food bank use, charity says

From The Guardian: Britain’s biggest food bank charity has called for urgent changes to Universal Credit after unveiling figures that show it gave out more than 650,000 food parcels in the past six months – a year-on-year increase of 13%.

The Trussell Trust said the government’s insistence on making new claimants wait at least five weeks for their first universal credit payment was driving big increases in the numbers of benefit claimants relying on food banks.

“The only way to stop even more people being forced to food banks this winter will be to pause all new claims to universal credit, until funding is in place to reduce the five-week wait,” said Emma Revie, Trussell’s chief executive.

The trust said more than a fifth of referrals to its network of 428 food banks were generated as a result of claimants facing delays in benefit payments. Nearly a third of this group were waiting specifically for a first universal credit payment.

Revie said the benefits system was failing to protect claimants from hunger. “Our benefits system is supposed to anchor any of us from being swept into poverty, but if universal credit is to do that, we need to see urgent changes,” she said.

The trust said it gave out 658,000 emergency food parcels between April and the end of September. Of these 233,000 went to families with children. During the year 2017-18 it gave out a record 1.3m food parcels to an estimated 666,000 people.

[Read full article on Guardian website…]

Sam Allardyce brands UK’s reliance on foodbanks a ‘disgrace’

From The Guardian: Sam Allardyce has branded the growing number of foodbanks in Britain a national disgrace, after visiting one in his role as Everton FC manager this week.

Allardyce, together with his assistant Sammy Lee, donated food on behalf of the club to the North Liverpool foodbank on Thursday. Supporters of Everton and Liverpool have held regular collections for the facility, one of 428 operated within the Trussell Trust Network, having set up the Fans Supporting Foodbanks initiative. Three wards surrounding Goodison Park are among the poorest in Europe, with up to 42% of families living under the Living Wage Foundation’s poverty line.

After praising the patients, parents and staff at Alder Hey, he said: “It’s extremely depressing that a country of this magnitude, and where it thinks it lies in itself, can allow so many food banks to be operating in this country.

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A mother given 50p a week for housing: the benefit cap one year on

The head of policy at the Chartered Institute of Housing writes in the Guardian: “A year on from the introduction of the lower benefit cap, its abiding legacy is to push people closer to homelessness.

“The cap, introduced on 7 November 2016, reduced the total amount any family can receive in benefits from £26,000 to £23,000 in London and £20,000 outside the capital, leaving families with significant shortfalls between the benefits they get and the cost of their housing.

“In our most recent research we spoke to 18 families with capped benefit across the UK and each time we heard a familiar story – one of stress, struggle and a daily fight to remain in their home.

“Half of those families said they had gone without food, fuel or were otherwise in debt as a result of the cut. Among a raft of other hardships a third said they had been forced to use food banks.”

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Surge in demand at foodbanks in Universal Credit trial borough as claimants wait 13 weeks for cash

From Southwark News: Demand at foodbanks in the London Borough of Southwark has surged due to waits of up to three months for people starting on Universal Credit to get their first payments, it has been claimed.

More than 4,000 Southwark residents have joined the Universal Credit system since it was introduced at local Job Centres in early 2016. Labour councillor Fiona Colley said claimants have “dropped off a cliff” for periods of twelve to thirteen weeks, forcing them into rent arrears.

Universal Credit (UC) – which groups six types of benefit into one payment – was touted as the Conservative Party’s big hitting welfare reform after they came to power in 2010. Read more

Tory MP claims food banks are simply “part of modern living”

From Political Scrapbook: Conservative MP George Freeman has found a new excuse for the explosion in demand for emergency food parcels since the Tories took power – apparently being unable to buy food is just part of modern life.

The Tory MP told BBC Radio 4’s Westminster Hour: “The truth is things are tough. They have been tough in the last few years. Barry [Gardiner] may well try to say this is a Tory problem – foodbanks went up by 10 times under Tony Blair. It’s been part of modern living. The cost of living has gone up.” Read more

Tory MP tells hustings: “I’m really pleased we have foodbanks” then threatens to call police on angry disabled voter

From Evolve Politics: The Tory MP for South East Cornwall, Sheryll Murray, is today at the centre of a row with constituents after she told a local hustings that she was “really pleased we have foodbanks” in the area, and then threatened to phone the police on an audience member who challenged her words.

The Conservative candidate had been speaking to voters at a hustings in the area when the comments were made.

Leah Browning, the South East Cornwall constituent who shot the video, said the audience member who challenged Tory MP Murray’s offensive remarks about foodbanks was disabled with a walking stick.

[Read full article and watch video on Evolve Politics website…]

A woman using food banks breaks down on live TV: “I need to let the nation know what it’s like”

From The Canary: Tracey Culham said using food banks is “the most degrading thing”, especially when “you’ve worked all your life”. Her intervention on national television is a glimpse of the reality for many under the Conservative austerity programme.

The Conservative government is directly responsible for pushing ordinary people into food poverty. The number of three-day food packages sent out by the Trussell Trust alone increased from 40,898 to 1,182,954 between 2010 and 2016-17. That’s a record-breaking increase of 2,792% since the Conservatives came to power.

But it’s worse than that. A report by the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Hunger estimates that over half the emergency food issued comes from organisations independent from the Trussell Trust’s figures. This means the real numbers are much higher.

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