Record Food Bank Usage Is A 'National Scandal'

More than a million emergency food parcels are handed out for the second year running - including 415,000 to children

Food bank usage has hit record levels - with 1.1 million emergency parcels given out by a leading charity in the last year.

The Trussell Trust handed over 1,109,309 three-day parcels during 2015-16 - up 2% on the previous year.

More than 415,000 of the parcels went to children.

Estimates suggest more than 500,000 people used one of the trust's 424 food banks.

The trust said a million emergency food supplies a year must not become the "new normal".

Chief executive David McAuley said: "Today's figures on national food bank use prove that the numbers of people hitting a crisis where they cannot afford to buy food are still far too high.

"One million three-day food supplies given out by our food banks every year is one million too many."

Almost half of food banks said benefit sanctions were responsible for increased visits.

Low wages, high living costs and insecure work contracts were also to blame, according to the trust.

Shadow environment, food and rural affairs secretary Kerry McCarthy called the findings a "national scandal".

But a Government spokesman said: "Reasons for food bank use are complex so it is misleading to link them to any one thing.

"This Government is determined to move to a higher-wage society, introducing the new National Living Wage that will benefit over one million workers directly this year, and we're also spending £80bn on working-age benefits to ensure a strong safety net for those who need it most.

"The vast majority of benefits are processed on time and the number of sanctions have actually gone down."

More than 40,000 volunteers helped at food banks in the past year, with the public donating more than 10,500 tonnes of food.

Shameful.

There ought be no need for this in this day and age.

Fewer people are using Coventry's foodbanks thanks to an "economic boom"

An “economic boom” in Coventry has seen a welcome slump in demand at the city’s foodbanks.

New figures show the number of emergency food parcels handed out in the city fell from 18,600 in 2014 to 15,800 last year.

The decrease represents a drop of 15 per cent compared to a two per cent increase year-on-year nationally, meaning foodbank use across the UK remains at record levels.

The figures were released on Friday by the Trussell Trust charity, which runs 424 foodbanks across the UK, including 18 in Coventry.

Speaking about the local figures, Coventry foodbank manager Hugh McNeill said: “It’s quite a significant decrease and we are really pleased about it.

“Part of it is an economic boom going on in Coventry.

“We are seeing the effects of recruitment by companies such as Jaguar Land Rover.

“We have also been running a very successful advice service for the last 16 months with a financial return to clients of £270,000.”

People using the advice service, run jointly with the Citizens Advice Bureau, have started claiming benefits they were unaware they were entitled to, and negotiating on debt repayments.

A project has also run helping people struggling to pay water bills.

But Coventry foodbank volunteers are still concerned about the number of people who need emergency three-day supplies, even though they have jobs.

And they are worried about the number of families with children who need their help.

Primary school teachers in Coventry regularly refer families to the foodbank when pupils arrive in class hungry.

I somehow doubt the kind of people needing foodbanks are also the kind being recruited by JLR?

I would echo those thoughts Dutchman.

Almost 16,000 parcels is still a disgrace.

Ministers have shelved a plan to cut benefit sanctions, sending poorest to food banks



Ministers are accused today of breaking a promise to introduce a reform to cut the huge number of benefit sanctions, plunging people into the misery of hunger and eviction from their homes in some cases.

A “yellow card” system, giving claimants 14 days to challenge a decision to dock their benefits on the grounds it was imposed wrongly, was pledged more than two years ago in October 2015.

But the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has now admitted that the move has been postponed because “an evaluation has proved complex” - and that no date for its implementation has been agreed.

The stance has been condemned by Frank Field, the chairman of the Commons Work and Pensions Committee, who highlighted the appalling distress that sanctions are still causing.

It comes as the number of sanctions starts to rise again, driven by an explosion in the number of punishments imposed on claimants of universal credit.

“People are being reduced to going to food banks because they are being left so hungry, or they are losing their homes, which the yellow card would prevent.”

The warning system was first promised in October 2015 by Iain Duncan Smith, then Work and Pensions Secretary, who was under growing pressure from MPs.

Someone who is disabled and unemployed is also 50% more likely to be sanctioned than if they're non-disabled and unemployed.

The word 'Complex' has been used by the government a couple of times in the above articles. Nothing complex about it. Stop unemployment benefit to the poorest people so they starve and lose there homes..... What's complex about that??

It should be called cleansing of the poor and weak not complex as that is what it is.

A civilised society is known for how it looks after its sick and its poor. Doesn't say much for post Thatcher Britain does it?

I agree with you Rebbonk she believed in cutting our purses in every house hold if the government had a recession and every party has done the same since even if there is nt a recession.