Food Banks

Part of Opposition Day — [15th Allotted Day] — Accident and Emergency – in the House of Commons at 5:09 pm on 18 December 2013.

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Photo of Jessica Morden Jessica Morden Labour, Newport East 5:09, 18 December 2013

My hon. Friend is right. I wish there were a DWP Minister present so that they could hear her point.

The depressing Wales-wide figures from the Trussell Trust show that, in 2010-11, it supported 4,070 individuals in Wales. This year, just from April to November, it has supported 44,756. As my right hon. Friend Paul Murphy said, it expects that figure to rise to 60,000 by the end of the financial year. Those figures are from the Trussell Trust and do not include figures from the independent food banks.

The unmistakeable message that I have been told time and again is that there has been an explosion of working people using food banks. Unemployment may be down, and I definitely welcome that, but the use of food banks by working people has dramatically increased, which should tell the Government something.

Whatever the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions says, the truth is that the proportion of people using food banks as a result of benefit changes is sharply increasing. The Government have shamefully—and it is shamefully—altered the form used by Jobcentre Plus staff when referring clients for food parcels by taking off the tick box that records that they are referring them because of benefit changes. No wonder the Secretary of State can play down the fact that benefit changes are driving the increase in demand—he has stopped his staff collecting the data that prove it.

I thank all those involved in food banks for the work they do in my constituency, not least our churches, which are also running night shelters, and the street pastors. They should be praised for the work that they do. I also thank King’s church in Newport, which partners with FareShare to reduce food waste and feed people at the same time, and businesses such as Newport Bus, which has been collecting for Ravenhouse this Christmas.