Food banks aren’t the solution to food poverty, the state is

Yesterday the of All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Hunger and Food Poverty produced a report – Feeding Britain – which examined food poverty in the UK. In doing so, they added to a pile of evidence that shows an increasing number of people are relying on food banks because they can’t afford to survive (the Trussell Trust found a 170% rise in the number of people using food banks between 2012-2013).

To begin trying to remedy this, the report’s authors call for a government-backed network to co-ordinate the work of food banks – particularly as they get just 2% of the food wasted every year. Those involved in writing the report have also explicitly said they believe the solution to food poverty should be driven by the voluntary sector.

However, such an approach would simply treat the symptoms of this problem, not the causes. Although the people who run food banks do an enormous amount of good, these organisations are a sticky plaster, covering up gaping holes left by the state. To really erode food poverty, solutions must come from the state because government policy is what’s caused this problem.

Further evidence from the Trussell Trust has shown this to be the case. The charity examined the primary reasons why people are forced to use food banks – they found that for 31% it was benefit delays, for 21% it was low income and for 17% it was changes to benefits. These statistics prove that the rise in food banks is a product of the Government’s changes to the benefit system, including cuts and harsher sanctions (a key prong in their systematic dismantling of the welfare system) and the almost non existent protection for people in low-paid and insecure work.

To the credit of those who produced the Feeding Britain report, they didn’t just call for the food bank network, they also suggested various ways to make benefit sanctions less punitive. Yet the Government have refused to review the sanctions system. Conservative MP Matt Hancock has insisted that getting more people into work is the best solution to this problem, entirely ignoring the fact that most people who are classed as in poverty are also in job.

Tory peer Lady Jenkin – who is a member of the APPG – revealed why the Government have chosen this nonsensical tact. Without shame, she told a packed room “poor people don’t know how to cook“. This seeming throwaway comment suggests that poor people are to blame for their poverty. In reality, the economically poorest in our society are discriminated against at every turn – if not by employers then by the government-controlled welfare system.

Unfortunately, the Labour Party are guilty of tarring the poor with this same negative brush. Rachel Reeves’ insistence in 2013 that under Labour the long-term unemployed would not be able to “linger on benefits” and that they will be “tougher on benefits” than the Tories (most of those on long-term benefits aren’t fit able to work and less than 1% of workless households might have two generations who have never worked). Not to mention Ed Balls’ announcement that Labour will cap the rise in child benefit at 1%. As with Labour’s immigration policies, the leadership is buying into false myths and barely even making a mark on the core problems (how many times does it need to be said that they should pledge to legislate for a Living Wage instead of setting the National Minimum Wage at £8 by 2020?).

Proposed political policies –  coming from both the Government and opposition benches – assume that Benefits Britain is a reality, when the facts show it is a myth. This is important because the terms of this debate has allowed peoples’ use of food banks to soar (because it’s implicitly assumed the poor are at fault) and, as the APPG report shows, shapes the way politicians think fit to respond to this crisis.

The Labour Party must recognise that food banks run by charities and volunteers – who should be commended for their tremendous hard-work and dedication – are not the solution to food poverty . They should instead be championing decent pay and a stronger welfare state, and saying without any qualms that solving food poverty is the state’s responsibility. It is, after all, the state that have created this dire situation.