The growth of food banks is directly linked to benefit cuts such as sanctions.<\/p>\n
It blows a hole in David Cameron\u2019s claim that the huge rise in food bank use could be down to better advertising at Jobcentres.<\/p>\n
The Oxford University research shows emergency food aid is most concentrated in areas where there are high levels of joblessness and benefit sanctions.<\/p>\n
The survey, which used data supplied by Britain\u2019s biggest food bank network, the Trussell Trust, found food banks operated in 20 council areas in 2009-10.<\/p>\n
By 2013-14, they existed in 251 areas.<\/p>\n
The study, published in the British Medical Journal, concludes, \u201cMore food banks are opening in areas experiencing greater cuts in spending on local services and central welfare benefits and higher unemployment rates.<\/p>\n
At the same time, the rate of food aid distribution tripled between 2010 and 2013 from about 0.6 food parcels per 100 people to 2.2 per 100.<\/p>\n
There were stark variations between local areas, from a low of less than 0.1 food parcels per 100 people in Lichfield, Staffordshire, to a high of eight parcels\u00a0per 100 people in Newcastle upon Tyne.<\/p>\n
Higher rates of food parcel distribution are \u201csignificantly associated\u201d with welfare cuts and austerity measures.<\/p>\n
The author of the study, Rachel Loopstra, said it was likely to have \u201cunderestimated the true burden of food insecurity in the UK\u201d because food aid provision is patchy and data collection is relatively crude.<\/p>\n
A scheme which sees supermarket vouchers given to 2,000 families in Newcastle to help feed their children over the school holidays has been axed<\/p>\n
Under Newcastle City Council\u2019s Crisis Support Scheme, families with children aged five and six, who had their housing benefit reduced by the bedroom tax, got \u00a0Asda vouchers.<\/p>\n
But the council has scrapped the scheme.\u00a0A number of Labour councils introduced similar schemes\u2013most now set to be abolished.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The growth of food banks is directly linked to benefit cuts such as sanctions. It blows a hole in David Cameron\u2019s claim that the huge rise in food bank use could be down to better advertising at Jobcentres. The Oxford University research shows emergency food aid is most concentrated in areas where there are high […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":145756,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,52,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-145754","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-money","9":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145754\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}