‘When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a Communist.’

This was said in the 20th century by Helder Camara, a Catholic Archbishop in Brazil living under a brutal right-wing dictatorship.


‘When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a Communist.’

This was said in the 20th century by Helder Camara, a Catholic Archbishop in Brazil living under a brutal right-wing dictatorship.

In 21st century Britain, food banks are now hailed by the government as a positive sign of the Big Society in action, and those who question their proliferation are said to be denigrating the work of the charities involved.

Indeed, the Department of Work and Pensions has so embraced the idea of food banks it gave permission to Jobcentres to distribute vouchers to the ever-growing numbers of clients who are going hungry. Iain Duncan Smith is on record as being ‘proud’ of this but surely it is damning evidence that the welfare safety net has been stretched to breaking point by government reforms.

Tim Lang, professor of food policy at City University and a former adviser to the World Health Organisation, has said: “There ought to be a very big political debate about food banks. It should be a sign of shame… It’s shocking how quickly it’s been normalised.”

Now the Trussell Trust, which runs many food banks, is backing a report from Church Action on Poverty and Oxfam, which calls for ‘an urgent Parliamentary Inquiry into the relationship between benefit delay, error or sanctions, welfare reform changes, and the growth of food poverty.’

Church Action on Poverty’s Niall Cooper says: “The safety net that was there to protect people is being eroded to such an extent that we are seeing a rise in hunger. Food banks should not be replacing the ‘normal’ safety net provided by the state in the form of welfare support.”

Mark Goldring, CEO of Oxfam, and accustomed to feeding the hungry in Africa, says, “The shocking reality is that hundreds of thousands of people in the UK are also now reliant on food aid. Cuts to social security have gone too far, leading to destitution, hardship and hunger on a large scale. It is unacceptable that this is happening in the seventh wealthiest nation on the planet.”

The report, ‘Walking the Breadline’ concludes, ‘Changes to the benefit system are the most common reason for people using food banks: these include changes to crisis loan eligibility rules, delays in payments, Jobseekers Allowance sanctions, and sickness benefit reassessments.’ Surely when change leads to hunger on an extensive scale, we should stop calling it reform and start calling it what it is: a withdrawal of even the most basic support from large numbers of people. It is estimated that perhaps half a million people in the last year have found themselves unable to buy food.

The welfare reforms which are causing this food poverty are justified by pointing to the need to cut the deficit. But in reality, these policies will be economically counterproductive, as they store up even more expensive problems for the future. A report from Feeding America shows that even in the richest country in the world, where wealth inequality is high, ‘Food insecurity and hunger damage the architecture of children’s brains, and that makes it extremely difficult for them to ever reach their full potential as effective workers and members of society. As a result of that we all lose.’

David Cameron is fond of telling us that we are in a ‘global race’ in which we must strive to compete with other countries, but there is mounting evidence from around the world to suggest that his government’s welfare policies may in fact prove a handicap to the British economy. As the authors of the American report say, ‘Workers who experienced hunger as children create a workforce pool that is less competitive, with lower levels of educational and technical skills, and seriously constrained human capital.’

Mr. Cameron seems to have, to put it kindly, a rather contradictory approach to these issues. On 8 June he is hosting a G8 Hunger Summit in London, whilst remaining nonchalant about UK children going to school hungry.

And Iain Duncan Smith, who is so keen on welfare cuts that he has volunteered for more, maintains that what poor people need is not more money but a behavioural makeover.

Evidence from Canada indicates that this is not the case. Doctors there are now beginning to see poverty as a disease itself, as the ‘toxic stress’ of living in poverty takes its toll on both mind and body, and is particularly harmful to children and young people. Statistics Canada has reported that growing up in poverty is associated with increased rates of death and illness including diabetes, mental illness, stroke, cardiovascular disease, gastrointestinal disease, central nervous system disease and injuries. Importantly, the Canadian medical profession now recognises that these diseases are a direct result of living in poverty, not a result of the lifestyle choices of the poor, as Mr. Duncan Smith would like us to believe. Doctor Gary Bloch, who has placed a high priority on improving the incomes of his poorest patients by helping them to access benefits, concludes, “Treating people at low income with a higher income will have at least as big an impact on their health as any other drugs that I could prescribe them.”

So the government’s erosion of the welfare safety net, and increasingly punitive attitude to those on benefits or low incomes could prove to be a totally false economy, simply transferring the cost, probably a far greater cost, to the budgets of health and education, and ultimately damaging the economy by creating a less productive workforce. And that is not to mention the sheer human misery and suffering that they will have caused along the way.

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© Bernadette Meaden has written about political, religious and social issues for some years, and is strongly influenced by Christian Socialism, liberation theology and the Catholic Worker movement. She is an Ekklesia associate and regular contributor. You can follow her on Twitter: @BernaMeaden