Alex McIntyre

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan) on securing this important debate. Food banks have undoubtedly become a lifeline for countless families and children across the UK, including in my own constituency of Gloucester, and I am deeply grateful for the vital work that organisations such as Gloucester food bank do in providing immediate support to those in crisis. I also wish to highlight the work of all the other charities and organisations tackling food poverty in Gloucester, including Gloucester Feed the Hungry, the Redwell Centre, Barney’s Pantry, the Community Kitchen, the Welcome Table café and Quedgeley Community Pantry, to name just a few. Until 2010, food banks were something rare that only a few families ever had to rely on, perhaps in times of extreme need or emergency, but today that is no longer the case. Last year alone, more than 3.1 million emergency food parcels were handed out. That is a disgrace. It is a disgrace that in a nation as wealthy as the UK, which has the world’s sixth-largest economy, food poverty is no longer an isolated issue. It is a growing crisis, and one that worsens each year. In 2023, 7.2 million people, including 17% of children, were living in food-insecure households. That is a tragedy and a failure of our social and economic system. There are plenty of examples of failure under the Conservative Government, but the rise in the use of food banks stands out as perhaps one of the most alarming. Austerity, benefit sanctions, the botched roll-out of universal credit, underpaid and insecure employment, and an NHS left to fail—these policies have contributed to an epidemic of food poverty and, as always, it has fallen to a Labour Government to fix the mess that the Conservatives left behind. Food banks in Gloucester provide invaluable support, offering a lifeline in times of crisis. However, the work comes at a heavy cost: volunteers and organisers are under immense pressure, with many reaching the point of exhaustion to meet growing demand. I am pleased that the Government have started to take the action necessary to make work pay, improve workers’ and renters’ rights, build more social housing, and tackle child poverty head on.