I visited a food bank in Wombwell today to find out about the work they do in providing emergency food for those who are struggling.

The food bank does an incredible job and is kept running by dedicated and hard-working volunteers who give up their time to help out others.

But in this day and age it is completely unacceptable that people have to rely on food banks for access to food.

In fact, the number of people dependent on the emergency food packages is rising, with an increase of 7 per cent across the country since last year. This included 436,000 emergency food supplies that were given to children between April 2016 and March 2017.

In Barnsley alone, there are 6000 children who receive free school meals. But once schools break up for the holidays, the children no longer have access to these meals and experience ‘holiday hunger’, meaning many of them will be forced to visit a food bank.

For too long the Government has attempted to balance the books on the backs of the poorest and forced too many to be reliant on food banks. Despite the outstanding work done by Wombwell food bank and others like it across the country, I’ll be fighting hard for those forced into food poverty by this Tory Government.

 

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