This article titled “Food banks: MPs call for fresh inquiry into scale of UK food poverty” was written by Patrick Butler, for theguardian on Thursday 22nd January 2015 11.32 UTC The government should commission fresh research into why people use food banks, and start measuring the scale and extent of food poverty in the UK, a cross-party group of MPs has urged. In its report on Food Security published today, the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs select committee says that despite a growing number of people relying on emergency food aid ministers collect no robust data on this phenomenon, or analysis on why it is happening. It calls on ministers to follow-up an initial government scoping report into the growth of food aid published last year. This report highlighted the growth in food aid but said more research was needed to establish clear and robust data around the explosion in food banks. Now, who could possibly object to the collection of more evidence and data on such an important social issue? Indeed, you might assume that the government would welcome the committee’s recommendation, not least Lord Freud, the welfare minister, who declared only a few months ago that: IT IS VERY HARD TO KNOW WHY PEOPLE GO TO THEM [FOOD BANKS] My guess, however, is that ministers would rather chew glass than accept it. The key passage is this: WE RECOMMEND THAT DEFRA COMMISSION FURTHER RESEARCH INTO WHY MORE PEOPLE ARE USING FOODBANKS TO PROVIDE AN EVIDENCE BASE TO INFORM AND ENHANCE POLICY RESPONSES. WE RECOMMEND THAT THE GOVERNMENT COLLECT OBJECTIVE AND STATISTICALLY ROBUST DATA ON THE SCALE OF HOUSEHOLD FOOD INSECURITY, INCLUDING THROUGH THE USE OF QUESTIONS IN THE FOOD COSTS SECTIONS OF THE UKS LIVING COSTS AND FOOD SURVEY. IT SHOULD ALSO MONITOR TRENDS OVER TIME SO THAT THE EFFECTIVENESS OF POLICIES CAN BE ACCURATELY GAUGED AND ANY NECESSARY CHANGES MADE IN RESPONSE TO EVIDENCE OF NEED. Innocuous-sounding perhaps: but anyone who has followed the political debate over food banks during the last two years will see its central importance. They will have noticed, perhaps, how neurotically incurious the government is about the scale and causes of food poverty. How it not only has steadfastly refused to collect data on this topic but routinely derides any attempts by others to do so, however authoritative. Why? Because the food bank phenomenon has become a rolling commentary on the deep flaws and ideological vanities of the Coalition’s policies of austerity and welfare reform. What data we have suggest that the biggest drivers of food insecurity (meaning, in effect, the experience of not knowing where the next meal will come from) are in significant part the government’s doing: tighter benefit conditionality and sanctions, long delays in the payment of benefits, the bedroom tax and benefit cap, the freezing of benefit levels, and the gaping holes emerging in the welfare safety net. Yet for ministers it is axiomatic that there is no link between welfare reform and food banks. Evidence from food banks has even started to unpick ministers’ standard line that work is a guaranteed route out of poverty: increasing numbers of people referred for food aid are in low-paid or insecure work and cannot afford to always put a meal on the table. Of course, food banks don’t have the full picture: they themselves recognise that their data does not identify for the full extent of food aid, nor capture those who do not rely on food parcels but nonetheless go hungry on a regular basis, who are food insecure, or whose poverty means they spend less on healthy food. Interestingly, the committee notes that government does not use an official definition of food poverty, although it has one for fuel poverty, which is used to inform energy policy. Almost in passing, it comes up with a working definition: IT WOULD BE POSSIBLE TO ADOPT A DEFINITION FOR FOOD POVERTY, SUCH THAT A PERSON WOULD BE CONSIDERED TO BE IN FOOD POVERTY IF THEIR INCOME FELL BELOW THE POVERTY LINE ONCE THEIR COSTS OF OBTAINING AN ADEQUATE DIET HAVE BEEN TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT. It does not appear, however, to recommend the UK government adopts such a definition to inform policy-making, though it points out that the US, Canada and Ireland monitor trends in household food insecurity. Any such undertaking, of course, would require – yes – research and data collection. The committee, as if sensing a ministerial inclination to ignore them, gives the following instruction: IN ITS RESPONSE TO THIS REPORT MINISTERS SHOULD SET OUT DETAILED PROPOSALS FOR HOW IT WILL WORK WITH PARTNERS TO GATHER DATA, THE TIMESCALE FOR ESTABLISHING A WORK PROGRAMME AND ITS ANTICPATED OUTPUTS Well, good luck with that. It is worth recalling the shenanigans that took place the last time Defra commissioned research into food banks. The last thing ministers want, you suspect, is to collect evidence that might enable the effectiveness of their policies to be “accurately gauged”. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010
Posted on: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 20:14:03 +0000
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