Vicar now fighting fires sparked off by poverty

THE manager of a Welsh food bank claims the cost-of-living crisis has become so severe that people in full-time work are turning up in suits to receive emergency parcels.

Reverend Dean Roberts, who runs Caerphilly-based charity The Parish Trust, said he has seen queues “down the street” for support with some brought to tears as a result of their financial and emotional hardship.

Speaking on the Sunday programme on Radio 4, Rev Roberts said he had seen a huge increase in the number of people requesting food parcels in his community for the first time.

“Prior to maybe a month or so ago, we had a lot of regulars who were coming to us because of the furlough scheme, Covid, that sort of thing,” he said.

“But now we’re starting to see more and more people from a wider cross-section of society coming to ask for help and it’s quite worrying.”

Rev Roberts said The Parish Trust, based out of St Thomas’ Church, Trethomas, is carrying out far more than just food distribution.

He explained: “We started out in the pandemic doing practical things to alleviate some of their worries, but now we’re doing all sorts of things such as courses, clubs, we’re liaising, we’re signposting.

“Only a few weeks ago I was running round to a single parent who had fled a terrible situation and had absolutely nothing in the house with a with a little baby as well. We’re just finding that we’re e re fighting fires. fires.”

He added that hat the charity itself is close to breaking king point as it cannot manage its own wn rising living costs.

“Our bills are increasing and we’re trying to still maintain that level of service to everybody without having to say no to somebody,” he said.

Rev Roberts said more people were being plunged into poverty and added: “We’ll have people who come who have partners, they’re both working full-time and they come in suits with their briefcase and to ask for help from us or to buy something called Bag a Bargain which we run, which is like a step on the road towards requesting a food parcel.” According to the Trussell Trust, more than 2.1 million food parcels have been sent out in the last year across the UK. That’s a 14% increase on the last two years – and more than

We’re seeing that more and more people queuing down the street, people crying because they they don’t know how long they’ll be able to afford the £2.50 Bag a Bargain that we provide REV DEAN ROBERTS

800,000 of those parcels were for children.

The cost-of-living crisis has been exacerbated in recent weeks and months by rocketing inflation, soaring household gas and electricity bills – with an eye-watering rise in the energy price cap last month – and rising petrol and diesel prices.

The Th situation yesterday prompted the chairman of supermarket giant Asda Asd to call on the UK Government to do d more to help tackle the issue.

Lord L Rose said the crisis comes at at time when there are a range of issues issu which need to be dealt with, including inc managing inflation and the impact of the war in Ukraine.

He H told the BBC’s Sunday Morning show: “The Government can’t sort sor out all the problems but the Government Go can do a few things. It could cou talk to industry. It could talk to the food retailers to make sure that we are cutting out every extra cost.

“At the moment there are not uniform for rules about the disposal of waste. The Government needs to look and say ‘how do we make things simpler?’.

“The Government can’t solve all the problems. We together, all of us, need ne to think of thoughtful ways to make this better. At the end of the day, sadly, the consumer will also

suffer.”