The Tories are still failing to acknowledge the food bank crisis
The rise in food bank use has been the subject of a number of missteps by the Conservative government, writes May Bulman
Food bank use is rising at a dramatic rate – up 23 per cent in a year, according to the latest figures from the UK’s main food parcel provider, the Trussell Trust. Almost 5,000 food parcels are handed out each day, of which more than a third go to children. There is no denying it is a mounting crisis.
One would expect soaring numbers of people are appealing to charities for food to provoke some concern and sharp action from the government, but that doesn’t seem to have happened under the Conservatives. Instead, the party seems to have consistently made blunders around the issue.
In an early example, Jacob Rees-Mogg showed his lack of understanding in 2017 when he described the growing use of food banks in the UK is “rather uplifting”, insisting that rather than demonstrating the scale of poverty in the country, it showed what a “good compassionate country we are”.
Other Tory MPs – notably Dominic Raab – have since been criticised for tweeting out photos of themselves helping out in food banks, with critics pointing out that it is odd to do so when it is under their watch that thousands of people have become too poor to afford basic meals.
In the latest blunder, the Conservatives have been accused of ignorance over how food banks operate in the UK, after incorrectly suggesting Labour had inflated figures on the scale of the problem from the Trussell Trust.
The party said Labour’s claim that food banks had given out 65 million meals over five years was “false” because the charity had handed out 1.6 million food bank parcels – but failed to acknowledge that each emergency “food parcel” handed out by the organisation contains at least ten meals.
Research has shown time and again that the new benefits system is inextricably linked to the explosion in food bank use. While the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) did – under Amber Rudd – admit that the two could be linked, there is no evidence that they have acted on this in any way.
Politicians can be forgiven for making minor mistakes – an ill-judged photo, a miscalculation – but when one party makes a number of blunders on the same issue, it starts to become a pattern. And when coupled with a lack of action, this becomes a failure to recognise a serious problem.
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