Tuesday 31 December 2013

Happy New Year: Reflections on 2013

As we reflect on the last year, we'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has supported the work of West Cheshire Foodbank over the last year, generously giving time, food and funds to support people in crisis. Thank you!

A lot has changed since we first opened our doors in November 2012. We continue to be overwhelmed by the generosity of people who choose to volunteer with us and by the organisations and individuals who collect food for people in crisis.  We're also delighted that we now work with almost 50 partner agencies that help us to identify households in need. Anticipating the opening of a new food distribution centre in Neston in 2014 we recently changed our name from ‘Chester and Ellesmere Port Foodbank’ to ‘West Cheshire Foodbank’ too. The most dramatic change we’ve seen however has been the shocking increase in the number of people going hungry in West Cheshire.

As Dave Walker illustrates, the number of people visiting Foodbanks, both in West Cheshire and across the UK is rising dramatically. The sentiment of the caption 'perhaps we should ask why this is happening' echoes that felt at West Cheshire Foodbank. The question as to why so many more people are going hungry is one that was posed in the well attended public debate organised by the Foodbank Action Group. The event's panel, chaired by the Bishop of Birkenhead, involved a local MP, representatives from Church Action on Poverty, the Joint Public Issues team and DIAL House. The panel was complemented by powerful contributions from visitors to West Cheshire Foodbank.

Since then there have been important developments in the debate on Food Poverty and rising Foodbank use with the Commons debate on the 18th December showing that hidden amidst the tribalism of our party political system, an evidence-based consensus could be possible.
So why are more people turning to Foodbanks?
Gillian Guy, the Chief Executive of the Citizens Advice Bureau attributes the “extremely worrying” and “fast-rising need for emergency food vouchers” to the “combined impact of welfare upheaval, low wages and the high cost of living”.
She is concerned by a number of the changes to benefits and says that the “tough and often poorly applied new sanctions regime has had a damaging impact on our clients and is forcing many to turn to emergency food vouchers. Withholding people’s support to get into work, often for spurious reasons, can move people even further away from the jobs market. Over the last year Citizens Advice has seen a 46% increase in the number of advice queries received about JSA sanctions alone… One client, having been sanctioned, was unable to claim hardship payments and was left without anything to eat. Another client had been refused Employment Support Allowance and was appealing the decision. In the meantime he had no money coming in and faced five days without food. A pregnant woman out of work turned to a payday lender. The debt was collected in one lump sum, and a further sum then taken for the already paid loan two weeks later. She then had no money on which to survive. It is vital that with so much upheaval going on in the welfare system that ministers put in place strong protection for people affected."



The message from Church Action on Poverty is the same. The charity’s recent campaign action, which parodies Saatchi and Saatchi’s 1979 Conservative election poster, argues that benefit changes are the primary reason ‘Thousands are going hungry’. This is supported by what we see at West Cheshire Foodbank: almost 60% of people who visit us do so because of changes to or delays in benefits.
A recent example of delay occurred on Christmas Eve as a Department for Work and Pensions “administrative error” left 32,200 people without any support just before Christmas. The evidence we have at present shows, as Oxfam UK has stated, that “our social safety net is failing”. To our disappointment, this understanding appears to have entirely bypassed government ministers who have consistently failed to grasp the painful reality of hunger facing hundreds of thousands of people in the UK today.

Hope for 2014

It is encouraging therefore, to see that key figures in the church do recognise this and have also used their Christmas messages to speak out against the injustices of hunger. It is crucial that 2014 is a year in which we see a greater recognition of the severity and injustice of food poverty from government ministers and witness an appropriate policy response. Initially, we would like to see the government:

- Meet with representatives from the Trussell Trust and other Foodbank Networks
- Publish the long delayed DEFRA report
- Hold a public inquiry into food poverty
 
We hope that this New Year, we can continue to rely on your support and prayers, and that you will join the growing movement speaking out against the injustices of hunger.

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