Govt. slips force Brits to food banks: Charity

The UK’s leading food bank charity says almost half of the people seeking assistance was because of problems with the government’s welfare system, including changes or delays in benefits.

The Trussell Trust charity presented the data on Monday showing 29 percent of referrals to its food banks were due to delays in benefit payouts, with benefit changes accounting for over 15 percent.

The findings were based on a voucher checklist filled out by every person who received parcels from one of the charity’s 420 food banks across the country.

The charity’s food bank director Adam Curtis said the organization had witnessed a rise of people using food banks following the Coalition government’s changes to the welfare system.

The food bank director called for a “more careful and thoughtful approach to sanctions to make sure that people are not sanctioned unnecessarily or carelessly.”

The charity also reported that low income was the next biggest reason people came for help, with roughly 22 percent of clients at food banks saying they were struggling to buy food despite having full or partial employment.

“Incomes for the poorest have not been increasing in line with inflation and many, whether in low paid work or on welfare, are not yet seeing the benefits of economic recovery,” said the trust’s Chief Executive David McAuley.

The charity’s comments came as a parliamentary inquiry report showed more than four million Britons are too poor to eat properly.

The inquiry also found that British families have been driven into poverty by the Tory-led coalition government’s “punitive welfare reforms” as well as low wages and money-greedy companies which supply Britons with gas, water, electricity and mobile phone services.