EXACTLY 133,726 referrals were made to a Trussell Trust foodbank in Scotland in the last 12 months. Take a moment to soak that in. Add together a full house at both Hampden and Murrayfield and you would still come up short and the reason is because men, women and children across Scotland are coming up short. They are short on income and increasingly short on dignity.
Having run a busy foodbank and helped others do the same, I have always kept close to those experiencing poverty. This week, I met Jamie in Aberdeen who is a second generation oil technician and, until the recent crash in fuel prices, was working and living on a sustainable income. He lost his job when redundancies started to be made. I also met Paul in Dundee who has worked in construction, renovation and the chef trade. He was working in the Hilton Hotel but was made redundant with 250 other staff when it was demolished to make way for the V&A Museum.
What do these men have in common? They are hard grafters, they have worked tirelessly and invested in the system but that safety net they hoped to rely upon has, in many cases, come undone and desperately needs restrung. Jamie and Paul have hit a point in their lives where a domino effect of crises has led them to the doors of a foodbank to survive.
In Paul’s situation, he experienced a benefit sanction after incorrectly filling in his job search log book but imagine if they had referred instead to his working history, his qualifications or the number of cities in which he has had a job? People feel as if they are encountering a safety net with so many holes that it feels more like a tightrope with greater potential to trip them up than support their journey back into employment.
William Beveridge, the founder of the welfare state, was accused of feather-bedding and institutionalising laziness when he argued for the establishment of the welfare state. During one feisty public meeting, his response to this argument was: “Adventure comes not from the half-starved but those well fed enough to feel ambition.”
Beveridge knew that hunger hurts and the physical and psychological impact upon those without work is significant. Beveridge knew we should seek to increase our support to those who have hit hard times rather than increase the strain.
The figures released by The Trussell Trust today are alarming. Almost half of those people were referred to a Scottish foodbank due to a benefit-related difficulty but the biggest rise was due to the one in five of those referred on account of a low income. This includes people in work but not able to make ends meet.
There is no magic wand that is going to eliminate food poverty in Scotland overnight but there are things we can do to make things better and ensure people can access the support available.
The Scottish Government set up and invested in the Scottish Welfare Fund in 2013. This £33 million fund provides crisis grants to people experiencing serious hardship but the accessibility and awareness of the fund is not always as it could be. We regularly meet people in foodbanks who are unaware of the fund or cannot afford to make the phone call in the first place.
Imagine if we increased the accessibility of that resource by placing Scottish Welfare Fund advisors in foodbanks. Imagine we increased the awareness of that resource by putting a Scottish Welfare Fund leaflet in every one of the 133,000-plus parcels of food we will probably provide to people in the next year.
Additionally, we are on the cusp of the Scottish election. If we are ever to produce policy that prioritises people in poverty then we need to amplify the voices of people experiencing poverty. In the aftermath of the Second World War, the World Bank was established to make investment in the rebuilding of war-torn Europe.
During the 1990s, after some unsuccessful efforts in poorer countries, they took a new approach by consulting "the true poverty experts, the poor themselves..." Imagine if we got the issue of food poverty back into the public chamber at Holyrood. Imagine if those debates and committees prioritised the participation of the real poverty experts. Perhaps then we could find solutions that will make food poverty a part of history.
Ewan Gurr, is Scotland Network Manager for The Trussell Trust
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