Yesterday saw Leader of the House of Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg, attack the United Nations Children’s Charity; UNICEF for pledging £25,000 to help feed children in South London. Mr Rees-Mogg called the action a “political stunt” after being challenged on why the UN aid agency’s new £700,000 fund to help community groups in the United Kingdom should even be required. While
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Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey MP has caused outrage after stating that foodbanks are the “perfect way to try and marry the challenges that people do face in difficult times in the life.” The already unpopular head of the Department and Work and Pensions (DWP) Coffey, was responding to a question from new Labour MP, Zarah Sultana at Work
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A comprehensive three year study by National Foodbank charity Trussell Trust and Heriot Watt University has been released today. Titled; The State of Hunger, it gives an insight to what has been driving the massive increase in foodbank use across the UK. It is clear from the report that there is one main reason; benefits. 86% of those surveyed were
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National foodbank charity The Trussell Trust have released their end of year statistics for the period April 2018 to March 2019. They show that the number of food parcels they gave out rose by 19% to nearly 1.6 million. Just under 500,000 of those were for children. The main reason for this rise? Benefits not covering living costs. Earlier this
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A study by The University of Lancaster on the effects of austerity in the social security system has labelled the policy as ‘social murder’. While this is of no surprise to many, it does add weight to the growing calls to end cuts to the benefit system. The research titled:“‘Violent proletarianisation: social murder, the reserve army of labour and social
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National foodbank charity The Trussell Trust have released their latest study on the effect Universal Credit has had foodbank referrals and other poverty factors in the UK. The comprehensive study is damning for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) as it shows that the new benefit is directly to blame for the rise in foodbank use. More worryingly it
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Foodbanks and Universal Credit are never far from the headlines. Usually it’s report blasting the government’s flagship welfare policy or the latest figures showing that foodbank use has rocketed. Like her previous poems Nicola Tiffin is explaining current events through poetry and this one covers the entire debacle of Universal Credit and foodbanks in a nutshell. Please share if you
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So foodbanks have been appearing in the news almost daily of late. Now Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey has announced the Department for Work and pensions – DWP are going to waste £217,000 on researching IF their policies have contributed to the rise in foodbank use. As if they don’t already know the answer.
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Following an Freedom of Information – FOI request I submitted to the Department for Work and Pensions – DWP, in mid June, I can now report on their reply. It’s well, astounding and likely another lie.
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Although the #FoodBankChallenge is doing well, I’ve decided to launch a summer holiday campaign to help boost donations for their busiest time of year. Well the #FoodBankChallenge has wielded some fantastic results for foodbanks across the UK and, even abroad. However, we cannot get complacent. It’s one thing to get a short term boost in donations, but it’s regular donations
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Friday 15th June 2018 ∼ Alex Tiffin Universal Credit has taken significantly longer to roll-out than intended, may cost more than the benefits system it replaces, and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will never be able to measure whether it has achieved its stated goal of increasing employment. In today’s report, the National Audit Office (NAO) concludes that
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An excerpt from my article on the Statesman website. My diary of two weeks on Universal Credit
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Article exposing the pattern of increased foodbank use after Universal credit is introduced to an area
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St. Andrew’s Primary School and Nursery Class, Airdire, joined in on the #foodbankchallenge
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