I hope you enjoy listening.

Food banks, a permanent part of our society or a temporary fix? We often talk at Trussell about the power of a cup of tea.

When someone arrives at a food bank, they're invited to sit and have a cuppa with one of our volunteers.

It's one of the simplest things we do, but it communicates something profound.

You are welcome, you are valued, you are not alone, and you will not be judged.

Every day across the UK, this small act of kindness is repeated thousands of times.

It sits behind the millions of emergency food parcels provided every year and reflects something important about our country.

And, and how close do you think the average household is to poverty and needing that facility?

So what we see in our food banks, um, is, is people who are on a incredibly low levels of income.

So the average household income after housing of somebody who's coming to a food bank is just 107 pounds a week for the household.

So, actually, people do everything they can not to have to come to a food bank.

But when your income is that low, often you've already faced impossible decisions about whether you're heating your home or being able to feed your family, whether you've bought new school shoes or been able to travel on the bus to get to work.

Um, so I think it's important to, to recognize, first of all, that people do everything they can not to come, but second of all, that if you are coming to a food bank, it's because your income is extremely, extremely low.

So, there are many people who have felt a squeeze on their budget, and there's no question that more people have fallen below that line that is leaving them in a place where they just can't cover the cost of essentials.

Could we have an update on the Guarantee Our Essentials campaign? I gather it does have success that's lingering on from 22nd of July it was last year.