Now then - food banks.
All week, there have been articles everywhere about them and various government spokesthings denying that the recent proliferation of food banks has anything whatsoever to do with benefits - especially from IDS, who intends to reform things so the plebs don't "stumble" into sanctions.
I've been crunching some numbers, and although it's only really the Trussell Trust which audits things closely, this is the best I can do.
The truth is that the increase in the use of, and need for, emergency food aid is mainly due to changes in the social security system.
Trussell Trust supplies, it says, 37% of all food bank aid in the UK. Since April, it has issued more than 900,000 parcels; by the end of its accounting year, this should be more than a million at current rates.
As TT supplies about a third of all provision, that's about 3 million parcels in a year. Assuming that all the other food banks operate in a similar way, half the recipients only ever have one parcel. That's 1.5 million people.
Of the rest, some have two or more; occasionally, people are supported for longer, but I have no figures for this. I think we could reasonably say 500,000 people have more than one parcel - ie. altogether, 2 million people have needed food bank help this year.
TT says that benefit delays and benefit changes comprise 47.9% of all referrals; a small proportion have been refused any crisis help or a Short Term Benefit Advance (both of which they are fully entitled to if they have had due benefits delayed). Next up is low income on 20.29% and "other" on 10.50%.
So if we assume that 2 million people needed help from a food bank at least once, a million of them needed that help due to problems with benefits. Whether that's delays, changes in entitlement, sanctions, fines, or cuts, the facts are that half of those in food poverty are in need because of DWP policy or inefficiency.
From April 2009 to April 2010, when the effects of the crash were being felt, TT issued 40,898 emergency food parcels.
From 2010 to 2011, this had increased to 61,468.
In 2010, the child trust fund, EMA, and unemployed mortgage support all went. Maternity and baby benefits were cut.
There were a few cuts, changes, increased sanctions (the latter mainly due to the Work Programme rules) in 2011-12.
That year, TT issued 128,697 food parcels - the same year that Working Tax Credits were cut, and childcare for working people was cut.
There were also changes in Housing benefit and LHA rates, new charges and fines, and more sanctions.
At this point too, time-limiting for ESA was beginning to have an effect.
In 2012-13, there were far too many changes to tax credits of all kinds to list here; anyone in work or with children were affected.
Bedroom tax, benefits cap, council tax changes, below-inflation uprating, new earnings disregards - plus PIP.
That year, TT issued 346,992 emergency food parcels.
It is obvious to anyone with half a synapse to call their own that with each new change more people are losing out.
Patrick Butler wrote about this in 2013 - see
http://www.guardian.com/news/datablog/2 ... cut-listed" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
In short, this year 2 million people will have used a food bank and 3 million emergency parcels will have been issued.
This does not include soup runs, canteens for homeless people (increasing) and meals supplied by religious institutions.
It does not include the food drives being organised by Save the Children, Oxfam, and the Red Cross.
We know that nearly a million people have been sanctioned this year. We know that half of them have been sanctioned for 3 months on average.
We know that evictions and homelessness is increasing due to benefit changes. We know that rough sleeping in London has gone up by 60%
We know all this, and we know roughly how many people are asking for food because they cant afford to buy it.
Why can't anyone in government admit that it is their policies that have caused this to happen?
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