The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
‘Distressing’ desperation in foodbanks, MSPs told
Children are ripping open food parcels because of hunger, one charity head says
Children are so hungry they cannot wait until they leave a Fife foodbank to start eating, says a charity.
Joyce Leggate, chairman of Kirkcaldy Foodbank, said it has seen an increase in the number of youngsters needing its help, accounting for a third of handouts.
A Holyrood committee also heard that demand for the food packages soars in areas after Universal Credit has been rolled out, which includes Dundee and Fife.
Ms Leggate told MSPs yesterday that the desperation of some children at the foodbank is “distressing”.
She said: “Over the school holidays... we had quite an increase in the number of children that are right in the parcel, in the foodbank, opening stuff up to see what they could eat on the way home, whether it is a packet of biscuits or anything.
“If we have any bread to give out it is getting eaten before they are going home, which really is quite shocking to see that level of hunger in children.”
Laura Ferguson of the Trussell Trust charity, which has 53 foodbanks across Scotland, said demand increases by up to 80% when UC launches in areas.
“We cannot forever rely on foodbanks to pick up the pieces of a failed welfare state,” she added.
The pressure to pause the rollout of UC is increasing on the UK Government ahead of next week’s Budget.
Delays to payments under the new system, which sees six benefits merged into one, are plunging households into crisis, politicians across Tayside and Fife have reported. New claimants have been receiving UC in a staggered rollout since 2013, while those already in receipt of support are gradually converting to the reformed regime.
A spokeswoman for the Department for Work and Pensions said it spent £90 billion a year on working-age benefits, while Holyrood has new powers to top up existing payments and create new ones.
“Universal Credit (UC) replaces an out-of-date, complex benefits system with cliff edges that often trapped people in unemployment,” the spokeswoman added. “Under UC, evidence shows people are moving into work faster and staying in work longer.
“We brought in improvements which include increasing advances to 100%, removing the seven-day waiting period and paying people’s housing benefit for two weeks while they wait for the first UC payment.”
Sir, – The comments by Tory MSP Michelle Ballantyne defending the Maoist two child limit for people on benefits was not only morally repugnant but factually incorrect (“Tory MSP slammed over ‘archaic’ child comments”, Courier, October 25).
A study by Cardiff University just over a year ago found that 60% of people in poverty in the UK were in work.
The study nailed the lie that work is the best route out of poverty.
Since the financial crash of 2008 wages in the UK have collapsed.
This was as a result of the decision to bail out the corrupt banks with taxpayers’ money.
The Conservatives’ purported concern for the hardship faced by millions is nauseating.
Since 1979 Tory governments sought to destroy the social gains of working people.
Declaring that there was “no such thing as society,” Margaret Thatcher set about redistributing wealth from working people to the rich and gutting public provision as part of the creation of a cheap-labour, low corporate tax base for the transnational corporations and international finance.
Ballantyne’s comment stands firmly in the tradition of the Thatcherite right.
Cruel and inhumane Tory policies have real life consequences.
According to DWP figures released in 2015, between December 2011 and February 2014 at least 2,380 sick or disabled people in the UK died after losing their entitlement to sickness benefit and being declared fit for work. Alan Hinnrichs. 2 Gillespie Terrace, Dundee.