Food Banks

Part of Opposition Day — [15th Allotted Day] — Accident and Emergency – in the House of Commons at 6:24 pm on 18 December 2013.

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Photo of John Glen John Glen Conservative, Salisbury 6:24, 18 December 2013

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s intervention. Of course, we all support the work of the food banks and the individuals who work in them. I wish to finish my tribute to Chris Mould, David McAuley, Molly Hudson and Mark Elling. I have got to know them, and their responsibility has been to roll out the growth of food banks. That may be uncomfortable for some Government Members, as might its implications and the way the tone of the debate has taken an unfortunate turn this afternoon. We have to acknowledge the growth in food banks. In 2005-06, there were fewer than 3,000 users, but that had risen to 40,000 by 2009-10. I accept that we have seen a similar scale of use. The question is: why and what are we going to do about it? [Interruption] We are talking about a factor of 10, to about half a million users at the moment. I am not trying to deny the scale of food bank use. If Labour Members would stop trying to make political points, that would be helpful.

The important issue is getting to the bottom of why so many people are using food banks. The Trussell Trust says that this is about not only homelessness, benefit delay, low income and changes to benefits, but domestic violence, sickness, refused short-term benefit advances, debt and unemployment.