Joined up thinking call as food bank need increases

THE Trussell Trust has urged the Welsh Government to involve it in discussions to tackle food poverty.

The charity claimed the problem in Wales was deep-rooted because income levels started from “a much lower base”.

Between April 2016 and March this year it gave 60,387 emergency food parcels to adults and 34,803 to children.

“Poverty is a very complex issue and the government has a duty to work with communities and various sectors to look after those that are most vulnerable,” the trust’s Tony Graham said.

He praised the Welsh Government as being “the most proactive” in the UK when it came to dealing with food poverty.

But he urged politicians to involve charities in discussions about poverty.

“There is not a lot of joined up thinking going on,” Mr Graham said.

“Organisations like the Welsh Government and others don’t often get invited in to help create and roll out some of these programmes.”

A Welsh Government spokeswoman said it was working to “help people out of poverty”.

The number of emergency food parcels given out by the Trussell Trust rose from 79,049 in 2013-14 to 85,875 in 2014-15.

It then dropped to 85,656 in 2015-16 but rose by 11% to 95,190 in 2016-17.

“The next few years will be challenging,” Mr Graham said.

“There is no doubt we expect things to get tougher before they get better.

“It would be great not to have food banks one day.

“But in the short to medium term we only see the need increasing.

“We are gearing up to provide more food parcels.”

In the past nine years the Trussell Trust has opened 36 food banks in Wales.

Mr Graham insisted he was “optimistic”.

“In Wales we have always come together to care for our own,” he said.

“I lived in Wales during the miners’ strike which is the perfect example of how a community looked after the people that needed it.”

In 2015 research with PhD student David Beck, Bangor University’s social policy expert Dr Hefin Gwilym listed 157 food banks in Wales.

“The reason food banks are developing still is because of the poverty that is experienced in Wales,” he said.

“Part of the problem is to do with the fact that benefits are not as generous as they used to be.

“Then you have got the introduction of the bedroom tax which has affected a lot of people. Some have got into rent arrears, some people have been made homeless.

“People are having to decide whether to pay the rent or to buy food.”

Well-paid jobs in industries like coal and steel were no longer there, he added.

“Now what people are experiencing is short-term contracts, zero-hour contracts, being self-employed and things like that,” he said.

Dr Gwilym said as long as austerity continued people would keep using food banks.

He questioned whether dealing with poverty should be left to the voluntary sector.

“I’m not saying the state should take over food banks,” he said.

“But there is a responsibility that the state has to provide welfare to give people a basic living standard.”

He suspected it was easier to access food banks in some parts of the country than in others.

“It is not like provision from the state where it has to be available,” Dr Gwilym said.

“It is dependent on food banks doing it voluntarily and that does not mean there capita.”

Dr Gwilym said income inequality was rising “everywhere”.

“Working people have lost out the most since 2008,” he said.

A Welsh Government spokesman said: “We recognise the valuable role food banks play in helping people experiencing poverty and hunger.

“We are working hard to increase prosperity for people in Wales and help people out of poverty.

“Job creation, closing the education attainment gap and improving skill levels are top priorities and represent the most effective levers at our disposal to tackle poverty in Wales.” is fair distribution per