Food bank Britain

When the figures showing the staggering rise in food bank use in the past year were first published, the Tories’ excuses were endless.

 
Work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith claimed earlier this year that “there was no evidence as to whether food bank use is supply led or demand led,” essentially arguing that more people used food banks last year simply because more food banks existed.

 
But new research from the Trussell Trust, a charity that runs the country’s largest network of food banks, found a direct link between skyrocketing food bank use and welfare cuts.

 
“I thought the system would protect me”

 
Of the 900 food bank users analysed for the study, the Trussell Trust found that up to two-thirds had accessed emergency food aid because of problems with the welfare system, including sanctions, waiting for benefits payments, or a reduction in disability benefits.

 
One of the in-depth case studies outlined in the report tells the story of “Kath,” whose partner left four years ago and who was forced to give up work to be a full-time carer for her son with several severe medical conditions.

 
Kath, who has three children, was barely making ends meet when her child tax credits were suddenly cut without notice. She had used these credits previously to pay for food and other necessities.

 
The HRMC claimed the tax credits were cut because she had failed to notify them that her children were staying in education, a claim that Kath said was untrue. After being given a number to call, her nightmare of unpaid bills, an unheated home and starving children began.

 
She called the number she was given all day, every day, but was never able to get through. It would be a full eight weeks before the decision to cut her child tax credits would be overturned. During this time she survived with the help of her local food bank and donations from the Citizens Advice Bureau.

 
“I thought the system would protect me,” said Kath. “I never thought I would be completely ignored. I feel I was let down hugely. My benefits are my safety net – if they’re removed, how are families like ours meant to survive?”

 
Kath’s story is not an isolated one—the study found that almost one-third of users had recently had a household benefit suddenly stopped and another third had recently been waiting for a benefit claim that was yet to be decided.

Acute income crisis

 
Another key finding in the report was that resorting to emergency food aid often occurred against a backdrop of living on an “ongoing severe shortage of income or security.” Many users reported struggling to find work in their local area, or finding work in jobs where income was unreliable.

 
While Tories love to spin the ridiculous narrative of “benefits scroungers”, the study also found that many of those who resorted to food banks had always been in work before, and so were unfamiliar with navigating the benefits system after experiencing a crisis such as a job loss.

 
Many of those analysed for the report were then forced to turn to food banks because they did not know which benefits they were entitled to or how to claim them.

 
Head of Unite community Liane Groves asserted that the latest report should lay aside any doubts about the rising popularity of food banks.

 
“This report proves once and for all that food banks are the natural offspring of austerity Britain,” said Groves. “It is a veritable scandal that many who use food banks are also in work.”

 
But chief whip Michael Gove made the audacious claim last year that suffering families turning to food banks had only themselves to blame—that their situation was caused by those who were “not best able to manage their finances”.

 
What the out-of-touch Tories–none of whom have ever had to make do with the poverty wages paid by profit-flush corporations –fail to realise is that food bank use is never a first port of call.

 
Indeed, the Trussell Trust report found users describing their experience of seeking food bank services as “unnatural”, “embarrassing” and “shameful”.

 
“In the fourth richest country in the world it is an outrage people are forced to rely on charity,” Groves went on to say. “While more and more people are falling through the cracks of our benefit system as a direct result of Tory cuts, the real benefits scroungers—tax-avoiding, decent-pay shirking, profit-rich corporations—are prospering on the backs of working people.”