The state of UK food poverty with Trussell Trust CEO, Emma Revie

If I could just, uh, interrupt and bring in sort of Donna and Michelle, because, um, you, you work with a project in South Wales called Stronger Together, and I, I was actually looking at one of your Facebook posts from the weekend where you were talking about the amazing Rotaractors who've been busy helping the food bank being s- the shelves being stocked.

But you did say on the face, on, on the, uh, post that unfortunately you've had to take action this week to prevent a small number of people from misusing the support available.

What, what happened there, and is that a common thing?

Not common, but if, uh, as Emma's alluded to, there are people who are in a cycle of poverty who don't know how to get, uh, out of it and, um, might be visiting multi-centers and different food banks and, um, overusing the system.

And we've been very lucky that we've built up relationships with other independent food, um, parcel suppliers who we have conversations with, and we are aware of people who might try to, um- Abuse is the wrong word, but, um, o- te- overuse the system.

And, you know, as you've just said, if you're living on a limited income and you've been fortunate enough to receive some support, that's helped you this week, so next week you might think, "Well, I'll try somewhere else to see if I can get that help." But that's not helping them because that's getting them into a cycle of, yeah, being dependent-

Mm

... on a source of food that isn't going to educate them on being able to manage the, the income that they've got.

Um, yeah, last week was a disappointing week because I think we had two that we had to s- to use the word sanction, I suppose, but for the right reasons.

Mm.

But it was, it's upsetting that you have to do it, um, as anybody in any of the, uh, support network could be un- uh, would understand.

Because sometimes you just have to say, "No." Yeah, you've, you've had more than your quota.

We've, we've done as much as we can.

We've directed you to the support network who can help you in money planning or seeking better to make sure that you've got enough benefits, that you're, you're claiming enough.

You know, 'cause we offer all of that advice as well.

That was a sad thing last week, but it's upsetting as well because the person who was in charge of the, the phone last week didn't quite know what to do and had to come to, unfortunately, me or Shel for us to then make those decisions and have those difficult conversations, and that happens in every support network, I'm sure.

That's right.

So e- i- the volunteers and, and the staff are, are just so amazing at having that diplomatic word with people when it's needed, but fortunately that is the minority, isn't it? It's a cross-section of, uh, humans just like any other area of life.

It's, it's exactly the same.

Looking holistically at somebody's situation, this is something, Emma, that I know from my experience the team put such a lot of work into to, to try to get to the root of what it was that brought them to the food bank that day.

And as, as we know, it's often a last resort.

They really didn't want to have to do this.

So c- can you speak about the, the wider support that the food banks offer?

Most common thing I hear is, "I never thought I'd be here." And people carry a lot of shame and stigma, and believe that their circumstances are quite different from everyone else's, and everyone's circumstances are obviously their own.

We see three quarters of our parcels going to people who are disabled or who have long-term health conditions, so it's not unusual to be there.