Anti-poverty campaigners have been highly critical of the government over the findings of a delayed report into food poverty.

image expired

On Thursday, trade union Unite accused the government of a "whitewash" and said ministers had attempted "to bury bad news" over the report's muted and delayed release. They said the report's authors were unable to look at the impact of government welfare reforms or the continuing crisis in living standards gripping communities across the UK.

According to food bank charity the Trussell Trust, more than 500,000 people were referred for emergency food aid between April and December 2013. In order to qualify for food aid from a private food bank, a person must be referred by a doctor, social worker, school or Job Centre.

The demand on food banks has skyrocketed since the Coalition government took power. In October, the charity revealed that the number of people qualifying for food banks had tripled in the past year. In December, Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith accused the Trust of "seeking [publicity] by making [its] political opposition to welfare reform overtly clear."

DWP denies that welfare reforms are linked to rising food poverty in the UK.  Both Iain Duncan Smith and welfare reform minister Lord Freud have refused to meet with food bank providers, who began requesting a government inquiry into the crisis in April last year.

The report's authors said that, although there has been little formal research into factors leading to people's referral to food aid schemes in the UK, "job losses and problems associated with social security payments" were amongst the most common reasons given by food aid providers during interviews. They also found that, "Those providing food aid, formally and informally, are consistently reporting an increase in demand" for aid.

Unite assistant general secretary Steve Turner commented "The government has sat on this report for nearly a year, refusing to publish it, refusing to meet with food bank providers, hoping the growing scandal of food poverty will go away.

"This is a 'Whitehall whitewash'.  Ministers and advisers have spent a year poring over it to remove the unpalatable truth that the government has created a national crisis, punishing people when they need help, presiding over a dramatic rise in food bank use while George Osborne squeezes living standards in a way unseen since the Victorian era."

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that food prices have risen over 12 percent above inflation since the financial crisis hit in 2008. In September, Richard Lloyd, executive director of consumer group Which? said that rises, combined with "stagnating" incomes are making it harder for many people to cope.  

Turner added on Thursday, "Forbidden from considering the impact of the government's policies, this report cannot hope to offer any sense on why increasing numbers of ordinary people are turning to food banks.  The food insecurity it talks of is the cause of benefit chaos and shocking low wages. Half a million people use food banks, not as the Tories would have it because there are more of them [food banks], but because they are poor and they are hungry.

"Nearly a year into the government's so-called welfare reforms David Cameron's moral mission really has lost its way when mums go hungry to feed their kids and people return food to foodbanks because they cannot afford the fuel to cook it. This report takes us no further forward.  We need an urgent national inquiry to expose why so many ordinary people are relying on food hand-outs and what the government of the seventh richest nation in the world can do to eradicate growing food poverty in this country."

Imran Hussain, Head of Policy for Child Poverty Action Group, added, "The Government's own commissioned research today finds that the huge growth in foodbank use is a result of real hardship and hunger, as families with children and others struggle to cope with falling incomes and rising living costs. Even more worrying is the suggestion that the growing number of foodbank users may be just the tip of the iceberg for food poverty today.

"It's understandable ministers back the intentions of their social security policies, but as the evidence from charities, foodbanks and faith groups mounts up, they can't ignore what's actually happening on the ground."

Meanwhile, the row over the Welsh government's intention to replace the Agricultural Wages Board in Wales goes on in the Supreme Court. The AWB was abolished in October, though the government has acknowledged that its closure will result in a transfer of money from workers to their employers.

The Welsh government fiercely opposed the Board's dissolution, which AMs said would result in rising rural poverty, and introduced emergency measures to safeguard workers' pay. However, UK Attorney General Dominic Grieve has sought to block the law, claiming the Welsh Assembly overstepped their remit.