Thousands depend on food bank help
FOOD banks are now a fixture of life in Wales. The Trussell Trust runs 36 in Wales and more than 43,000 people used their services between April and September – up 4% on the same period last year.
Of these, 15,220 were children. This begs the question: If the food banks didn’t exist, how would these children have been fed?
This is compassion in action. People give time and resources to make the principle of loving your neighbour and caring for the stranger a Welsh reality.
These men and women are meeting a need in modern Wales and they deserve not just our thanks but our attention.
They can see that there are major issues with the way the benefits system works. We owe it to them to not ignore their deep concerns that graver problems could be on the way.
The Trust reports that 43% of all referrals to a food bank in Wales were due to an issue with a benefit payment; a quarter were linked to a benefit delay while 18% were to do with a benefit change.
Food banks have ensured that thousands of vulnerable people have not been left in the lurch but this in no way lessens the urgent need to fix address the problems in our welfare system.
It is particularly concerning that the trust fears the UK Government’s landmark item of welfare reform – the roll-out of Universal Credit (UC) – could make the situation even worse.
In parts of the country where UC is already in force it has seen on average a 30% increase in the use of its services.
Susan Lloyd-Selby, who manages a food bank in Barry, said she is seeing “more and more people” who “simply have no money for food and no food in the cupboard”.
The idea of people going hungry in one of the world’s richest countries is deeply disturbing. Even in the most affluent societies, people can be plunged into poverty through disastrous changes in circumstances.
But as this month’s Budget Day races closer, the PM, the Chancellor and the Work and Pensions Secretary should study the warnings from respected think tanks and campaigners that benefits changes could push more people into the ranks of the impoverished.
Wales has much lower unemployment than in the recent past but abysmally low wages and inwork poverty are real problems that mean people in jobs often rely on government support. It will be a true scandal if hard-working parents are driven into fear and want by botched bureaucracy.
The intentions behind UC are the opposite of this. It is intended to simplify the system and remove disincentives to entering and progressing in employment.
Governments are right to seek to help to move people from welfare dependency into work, but this transition must be handled with utmost sensitivity and care. There is the danger that vulnerable individuals will be pushed into highinterest debt with catastrophic consequences for them and their loved ones; this is absolutely not the time to make things worse. The Western Mail newspaper is published by Media Wales a subsidiary company of Trinity Mirror PLC, which is a member of IPSO, the Independent Press Standards Organisation. The entire contents of The Western Mail are the copyright of Media Wales Ltd. It is an offence to copy any of its contents in any way without the company’s permission. If you require a licence to copy parts of it in any way or form, write to the Head of Finance at Six Park Street. The recycled paper content of UK newspapers in 2016 was 62.8%