Councils spending £3m on food poverty and food banks

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Via the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26369558

Almost £3m of public money is being used to help tackle food poverty, BBC Panorama has discovered.

A third of all councils in England and Wales said they had subsidised food banks.

The government said local authorities were now responsible, and better placed, for providing emergency help.

The Bishop of Manchester said the government needed to be "explicit whether food banks are to be part of the system".

The Right Reverend David Walker is one of 27 Anglican bishops who recently described food poverty as "a national crisis".
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    I'm responsible for promoting the health of the people of Derbyshire, and if people haven't got enough food to eat, I've got to do something about it”

Julie Hirst Public Health Specialist, Derbyshire County Council

'Plaster over gaping wound'

Panorama asked all 375 councils in England and Wales if they were funding food banks and, if so, how much money was involved. Of the 323 councils that responded, 140 said they were providing funding - more than a third of all councils.

The programme discovered that £2.9m of public money has been spent by councils over the last two years to help feed people.

Derbyshire County Council said healthy eating used to be its most pressing concern, but this had been overtaken by food poverty.

The council said it would be investing £126,000 from its public health budget into food banks this year.

"If people can't eat at all, what's the point in trying to get them to eat healthily?" said Julie Hirst, Public Health Specialist at Derbyshire County Council.

"I'm responsible for promoting the health of the people of Derbyshire, and if people haven't got enough food to eat, I've got to do something about it."

Professor Liz Dowler, a food policy expert and one of the authors of a recent government report about food banks, said there was a danger the lines between food banks and the state were becoming blurred.

"Food banks are an inadequate plaster over a gaping wound," she said. "They do not solve the problems. And that they should be enshrined as an inadequate solution is deeply immoral."