Islwyn MP Chris Evans has praised the work of food bank volunteers.
Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday volunteers from the Risca food bank offer their time to receive donations from generous members of the public at Tesco in the town.
More and more people are becoming reliant on food banks, with more than one million people needing at least three days emergency food between April 2014 to 2015.
Mr Evans said: “It is very sad to hear how many people in the local area are forced to rely on food banks to put food on the table. Thank you to the volunteers who make this possible.”
What a load of nonsense. He should be ashamed of this continual weaponising of the poor. Food has never been do cheap. The things you can buy for a few pence these days would be alien to our grandparents who really struggled. But they did it by learning to cook and budget.
If we are to help people it should not be giving them free food. Set up cooking clubs and budgeting clubs where people can come and learn to cook simple cheap meals.
I find this photoshoot distasteful and he should be ashamed
Who was it said, ” food banks are not part of the welfare state, but, a symbal that the welfare state is failing” ?.
I agree with `Tax payer` whoever you are, I also find any picture of a
food bank, manned by volunteers, and lauded for their public spirited
contribution by local politicians of whatever `rank`, distasteful, but
not for the reasons this Tax Payer lists, I find it distasteful that
politicians have to publicly promote the existance of this disgracful,
perverse necessesity in 2015 and that ANYONE has to go cap in hand to
beg for food, in almost every case to ensure children do not go to bed
hungry.
If Tax Payer begrudges a bag of food for those people
who`s family budgets do not provide for increased utilitiy bills,
increased transport costs, increased rents, lower working Tax Credits
upon which low paid workers rely. then he or she really needs something
useful to campaign on. Providing he or she is not asked, and does not
make a contribution of food for stocking the food banks, what really is
his or her problem,? it certainly is`nt a TAX PAYER ISSUE, the state
makes no contribution towards this essencial provisions operated by
charities, millions of people up and down this Country, particulalry
generous members of the public in Wales give freely, gifts of food, to
the food banks every day. So why not pick on something, which, a clearly
`proud` TAX PAYER should be able to find in Government waste, and
extravegances, like Huge Increases in MP`s Salaries, Huge increase in
AM`s Saleries, Tax Payers money spent on ex german water cannon which
are illegal to use in Britian, Tories proposals to pack the House of
Lords with Chinless voting fodder to force their disgusting idiological
policies into law, For gods sake give the poor a break, it is costing
you nothing.
Meanwhile families struggling to make ends meet and trying to do the best they can are constantly hammered every year by their local Labour council imposing the largest council tax increases in the whole of the U.K. Chris Evans is a disgrace, his constituents are bashed with huge council tax increases and he has the nerve to use the poor as a photo opportunity,
You appear to have altered your position slighty, you said previously;
“Food has never been do cheap. The things you can buy for a few pence these days would be alien to our grandparents who really struggled. But they did it by learning to cook and budget.
If we are to help people it should not be giving them free food. Set up cooking clubs and budgeting clubs where people can come and learn to cook simple cheap meals”..
Now you say “families struggling to make ends meet and trying to do the best they can”. And of course highlighting any increase in Council Tax in this the context of low paid families is nonsence as you must know? You will know of course they probably get Council Tax Benifit, if they qualify to use Food Banks?. so any increase in that has no further impact on the poor.
Why not start a debate on the perverse, huge increase in pay to MP`s,, the fact that all citizens under 25 (except MP`s) no longer qualify for Housing Benefit., how perverse is that?.
I never said that, it was “Tax Payer” not me. So you’re happy that crooked Caerphilly Council put up council tax way above the rate of inflation year on year which is hitting the poorest the most. It’s no good Chris Evans whining on about poor people using food banks when it’s his party who are hammering families with huge tax increases, a council tax freeze would benefit the poor far more than it would the rich – so just what did Welsh Labour do with the £50million given to them by David Cameron to freeze council tax, the wonderful Welsh Labour councils used it to safeguard their own jobs.
Sorry to have linked you to the comments of “tax payer”.
Can you explain how, when Council tax is increased by the Council, that those on subsistance pay, or qualifying benfits who don`t pay council tax at all, that it could possibly effect their level of poverty? that appears to be a fairly neutral position to me
I happen to agree with you that local nonessential services should be cut before a raise in tax is applied, because, these are the only way a Council will balance its books. up the tax or cut the services
The Labour Council, particulaly in Caerphilly decided to curtail some services, increase fees on others, and apply the least Council Tax increase it was possible to get away with in good fiscal mangement of the Authority.
A pity it did not go much further in the way officers of the council appear to have deligated power to engage outside, private, Consultants,at great public expense, to replicate the jobs of posts and staff Councillors protected and retained in the Budget considerations. That appears to be perverse, to me.