Panorama.S2014E08.Hungry.Britain
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00:00Tonight on Panorama, food banks are opening all over Britain.
00:07My husband and I would go for days at a time without eating.
00:14Feeding people who say they can't afford to eat.
00:17Can I see your fridge? Yeah.
00:19You just have half a tin of red kidney beans.
00:22The government says it's the offer of free food that's fuelling demand.
00:26So are people just out for a freebie?
00:29What used to happen is putting food on the table was the first choice.
00:33And now for many people, it's not the first choice.
00:37Or has the government's new benefits regime created a hunger crisis?
00:42You could have the debate as to whether they deserve the money or not,
00:45but don't starve them while you're doing that.
00:48We discover how tens of thousands of people are wrongly losing their benefits.
00:53Basically, people who start poor are going to be driven into complete destitution.
00:58And we reveal how our cash is propping up food banks.
01:02Are they becoming part of the welfare state?
01:05If people haven't got enough food to eat, I've got to do something about it.
01:29It's a cold Sunday afternoon in Bristol.
01:33And dozens are queuing for free food from Anglican nuns.
01:39First in line are Blake and Sharon.
01:42Sharon's 19 and five months pregnant.
01:45She spent last night in hospital.
01:47Her midwife worried she wasn't eating enough for her and her baby.
01:51I haven't been eating properly and I've only been going to the superann.
01:55I had complications with my pregnancy, so I was in the hospital.
01:59What would happen if you didn't have this place to come to?
02:09They live in a local hostel and are both on benefits,
02:13but they say they can't afford to buy food.
02:16What sort of debts do you guys have?
02:26How much do you guys owe, do you think?
02:36Anybody with a green ticket, please?
02:39The nuns say demand is rising.
02:41Many here have drug and alcohol problems.
02:44Most don't want us to show their faces.
02:47There you go, thank you. Can I have the next green ticket, please?
02:51We have a system where we don't ask any questions,
02:54but it's quite a demeaning thing to have to come and ask for food.
02:58On the whole, the people we meet here are not trying to play the system at all.
03:03They're people who really have got a very, very difficult situation.
03:07Free clothes are on offer, so Sharon's picking out baby clothes.
03:12They're so cute and so small.
03:14Are you worried about bringing the wee baby into your world at the minute without any money?
03:21Slightly, yeah.
03:24Hopefully it will get better in time.
03:34There you are, sir.
03:35Cheers, my lover.
03:37Today, in just 90 minutes, 228 people have got food.
03:44Here we go, thank you.
03:46Bristol is one of the wealthiest cities in the country,
03:49but there are 50 places here where you can go and get free food.
03:52In fact, over the last three years, a dozen food banks have opened here.
04:03On the other side of Bristol, Steve Hudson sits in the dark to cut down on his bills.
04:11He's broke and not yet on benefits.
04:15How long has it been since you had your last hot dinner?
04:20What are we on today? Wednesday, Thursday even.
04:24It's about five days to the last proper cooked meal.
04:33What are you surviving on?
04:37Well, the last couple of days has been nothing, really.
04:44Other than that, since then, I've had some pieces of toast and some porridge,
04:51and that's really been it.
04:56Steve, who's 27, used to dream of playing for Bristol Rovers.
05:01Can I see your French?
05:02Yeah.
05:03You just have half a tin of red kidney beans and a bit of ketchup.
05:12That's all you have.
05:14Yeah, yeah.
05:23Steve's a recovering drug addict.
05:25He's had a chaotic lifestyle and fallen out of it.
05:28There's always some kind of crisis in my life, wherever.
05:30People ask, you know, how do you keep smiling?
05:32But you just kind of crack on, you know, you just deal with it.
05:37He got a part-time job in a restaurant, but it hasn't worked out,
05:41and now he's going back on benefits.
05:45He doesn't have the bus fare, so it's a four-mile walk to the Jobcentre.
05:49And what will you eat tonight?
05:51At the moment, I don't know.
05:56Probably nothing.
05:57Nothing?
05:58Probably not.
05:59Do you have any toast in the house?
06:01No, no, I used the last of the bread earlier in the week.
06:10Steve's a recovering drug addict.
06:12He's had a chaotic lifestyle and fallen out of it.
06:15There's always some kind of crisis in my life, wherever.
06:19Steve knows he's partly to blame for his situation,
06:23but he's not the only one who says he's going hungry.
06:27In Bristol, food banks estimate
06:29they helped feed around 8,000 people last year.
06:36That's number 22.
06:39The East Bristol Food Bank is run in partnership with the Trussell Trust,
06:43a church-based network of food banks.
06:46I've got number five's food.
06:48Five years ago, the Trussell Trust had just 50 food banks.
06:52Today, it is more than 400.
06:55Here, people have to be referred to get free food.
06:59That may be a social worker who's working with a family
07:02that are struggling to put food on the table.
07:05It may be someone referred by the Jobcentre
07:08who's maybe lost work or changing their benefits.
07:11A lot of different agencies refer people for lots of different reasons.
07:16Once they've been referred, people get enough food to last three days.
07:21The aim is to give people a balanced diet.
07:24So people are coming here for fruit juice,
07:27for tins of meat, for tins of tuna,
07:30for simple basic things, tins of rice pudding.
07:33We don't give out lobster thermidor.
07:36We give out basic food.
07:39It's impossible to say exactly how many people are being fed by food banks,
07:44but the Trussell Trust say they helped feed hundreds of thousands of people last year,
07:49and they say demand has tripled since 2012.
07:54The government says that the food banks are helping drive the demand
07:57by offering free food.
07:59Let me just quote some words back from somebody who runs a food bank.
08:03This is the Oxford Food Bank.
08:05Food banks do a good service, but they've been much in the news.
08:08People know they are free, they know about them,
08:10and they will ask social workers to refer them.
08:12It would be wrong to pretend the massive publicity
08:15has not also been a driver in their increased use.
08:18To suggest that people are simply walking through the door
08:22because it's a freebie and they can take advantage of it
08:25is to suggest that more than 18,000 agencies in the United Kingdom
08:29are collectively colluding,
08:31because they're the ones that are signing the forms saying,
08:34please help this person, they're in trouble.
08:3711 days ago, a group of Anglican bishops published an open letter
08:41saying Britain faced a hunger crisis.
08:45They were accused of exaggerating the problem.
08:49I think they had a right, obviously, to speak out.
08:51As a fellow Christian, of course they need to speak out
08:54when they see concerns around people in their parish
08:58and beyond that they feel are in need.
09:00Were they wrong?
09:01I think they were wrong to do it in the way they did it,
09:04because they're effectively being used, I felt, deliberately or not,
09:07as pawns in a wider political agenda.
09:09I don't think we're pawns of anybody's agenda.
09:11I mean, clearly any debate that's about the affairs of the people
09:14of the country is going to have a political element.
09:16There's a lovely phrase due to Archbishop Desmond Tutu who says
09:19there comes a point when you've fished enough people out of the river,
09:22you take a stroll upstream and see why they're falling in,
09:25and at that point you're inevitably drawn into politics.
09:30Two weeks on, Steve's still got no work.
09:33He's had a small tax rebate, but most of that went to a loan shark.
09:38And his first benefits payment is lower than he'd hoped,
09:41just £55 for the next two weeks.
09:45I suppose I feel kind of deflated, really,
09:48especially as I was kind of anticipating more.
09:52He's relying on free food again, as most of his benefits
09:55have already gone on debts, gas and electricity.
09:59Steve says he's left with £2.75 for the next fortnight.
10:03Thank you. Thanks.
10:07The staff in here are great. They don't judge you.
10:09They don't seem to have any kind of prejudgments on anybody.
10:12And if it wasn't for having the food bank there,
10:15you know, I'd, you know, dread to think what would be the case.
10:23It's 5am and the start of a busy day for yet another organisation
10:27running food banks in Bristol.
10:31It's called the Matthew Tree Project.
10:34Evangelical Christian Mark Goodway is delivering a new day's food supply.
10:41He's about to open his seventh food bank.
10:44He calls them food stores in Bristol.
10:48Does Bristol really need seven food stores
10:51in addition to all the other food banks and other places
10:54where you can get free food?
10:56Absolutely. You know, I've turned my life upside down to do this
10:59and I'm not of a mind to do that if there's no need to be met.
11:03His volunteers handed out 43 tonnes of food last year.
11:08But Mark doesn't just want to feed people.
11:11He wants to turn their lives around.
11:14People are expected to show their bank statements when they get free food.
11:18Is that not a bit intrusive?
11:20No, I don't think it is intrusive because if somebody's coming to us
11:24because they're in financial hardship and they're asking for our help
11:28to help them out with the financial problem they're in,
11:31we need to know what's going on.
11:34The recession has left many worse off than they were five years ago.
11:38A government-commissioned report published recently
11:41dismissed the idea that people are taking advantage of free food.
11:45Its author says some people are simply broke.
11:49The reason that we have so many more food banks in the UK
11:52is because we have so many more people in need.
11:54Food prices have gone up about 30%, 32%,
11:57depends on which food stuff you're talking about,
12:00over the last five or six years.
12:02And over that same period, wages have stayed the same or fallen.
12:11The government says a job is the best way out of poverty.
12:15And unemployment levels are now falling.
12:19But the latest figures, dating back to 2012,
12:22show 9.8 million people in relative poverty.
12:26That's those living on less than 60% of the average income.
12:31In Derbyshire, they're taking radical action.
12:35The main public health concern used to be healthy eating.
12:39But now the county council says there is a more pressing problem.
12:44It's now become an issue of food poverty
12:46and some people in the county not being able to eat at all.
12:49And if people can't eat at all,
12:51what's the point in trying to get them to eat healthily?
12:54I'm responsible for promoting the health of the people of Derbyshire
12:57and if people haven't got enough food to eat,
12:59I've got to do something about it.
13:07The council is investing £126,000
13:11from its public health budget into food banks.
13:14Thank you very much.
13:16Gary, what's in this? Tell me what I'm eating.
13:19But not everyone thinks they're a good idea.
13:23Former Tory junior health minister Edwina Currie
13:26lives in Derbyshire herself,
13:28so we've invited her to a food bank down the road.
13:32So let me just show you the food bank area.
13:34It was set up by Christian Thorpe, a pastor,
13:37whose church now feeds about 60 people a week.
13:40His food bank has been given £9,500 from the council's fund.
13:46Honestly, does it not worry you
13:49that this is the stuff you're giving them?
13:52Can I just say something to you?
13:54If you have nothing, if you have nothing,
13:57if you have nothing at all,
13:59then a little bit of something is better than a lot of nothing.
14:03How are you going to get this message across
14:05that they have to live within their means,
14:07not get indebted, plan for a rainy day,
14:11all the old-fashioned lessons that my generation learned?
14:15We're working with other agencies.
14:17We're trying to teach people to take responsibility
14:20and we take the opportunities to talk to them.
14:22And, of course, some people listen
14:24and then there's other people who don't listen.
14:27I think this is a bit of a trap.
14:30No, I disagree.
14:31For me, this is not a solution.
14:33I disagree.
14:35It's clear the visit hasn't changed her mind.
14:38I don't think there's a need for food banks.
14:40I think there's a need for a lot more support and help
14:44for people with problems.
14:45But do you accept there is food poverty, then?
14:48No, I don't. I don't.
14:51I think people make choices
14:53and what used to happen is putting food on the table
14:57was the first choice.
15:00And now, for many people, it's not the first choice.
15:04And one of the reasons for that is they can get free food.
15:08Back in Bristol, some say it's not a question of choice.
15:12People are going hungry because they suddenly have no money.
15:17The biggest single driver for your food stores this last year
15:21has been what?
15:22The benefit changes.
15:24I mean, 23% of our clients, which is the biggest group,
15:27are here because their benefits have been stopped or reduced
15:31to such a level they can't survive.
15:33We've been told it's the same story across the country.
15:39Figures from food banks show that problems caused by benefits
15:42are the single biggest reason why people are getting free food.
15:46And that's confirmed by the Citizens Advice Bureau.
15:49But the government says that there's no robust evidence
15:52of a link between welfare reform and the rush for free food.
15:57The government says its benefit reforms will encourage
16:00the unemployed to get work.
16:02They're aimed at people like Iain Hoswell.
16:06After he missed meetings at his Bristol job centre,
16:09his JobSeekers allowance was cut completely for three months.
16:14He went from £71 a week to nothing.
16:18And he's still not getting paid.
16:21Guilty as charged.
16:23For whatever reason it was, maybe I was ill,
16:25maybe I had the flu that day, I just do not...
16:28I cannot remember.
16:30But it seems such a drastic punishment.
16:38If you are judged to have broken the rules,
16:40you automatically lose your JobSeekers allowance.
16:43And if you don't, you lose your job.
16:46If you are judged to have broken the rules,
16:48you automatically lose your JobSeekers allowance
16:51for at least a month.
16:53The toughest penalty? Three years.
16:57The Department for Work and Pensions says the rules
17:00are made clear to claimants
17:02and people can apply for hardship payments and loans.
17:08Iain did apply and qualified for a hardship payment
17:11of £43 a week.
17:14But most people don't get the cash for a fortnight.
17:17Iain had to sell his CDs so he could eat.
17:21The lowest point was just eating a box of cornflakes dry
17:24and sitting in the dark, no electric.
17:27Spent three days like that.
17:31After his bills were paid,
17:33Iain's £43 hardship payment didn't go far.
17:38The fact he smokes didn't help.
17:41What would you say to these people?
17:43You would say, look, you had a choice there.
17:45You spent the money on cigarettes rather than food.
17:47I was under enough stress at the time from the government sanctions.
17:51Packing and smoking at that time just added more stress onto me,
17:55which I just couldn't cope with at the time.
18:02With little money left,
18:04Iain's had to rely on the Matthew Tree Project to eat.
18:07What did you enjoy from last time?
18:10Usually the meatballs, which I have with pasta.
18:13A record number of benefit sanctions were imposed
18:16in the year to last September, a total of 875,000.
18:21So that means they've got either no money coming in at all
18:24or virtually no money coming in, so it's impossible to survive on that.
18:28So, you know, you could have the debate
18:30as to whether they deserve the money or not,
18:32but don't starve them while you're doing that.
18:34People should be treated with dignity, whatever their situation.
18:37There will be people who attend there who are in crisis,
18:40and, yes, there will be some that have been part of the system of sanctions.
18:44And within that system is trying to ensure that local authorities
18:47are supported with hardship funds to be able to help people
18:51through that process.
18:53We don't simply walk on the other side when that happens.
18:58In the latest government figures, we found a shocking statistic.
19:03In 11 months, more than 133,000 sanctions were overturned.
19:09That's almost 400 every day.
19:12But it can take weeks to challenge an unfair sanction
19:15and get the cash back.
19:17Now, what that means, of course,
19:19is that people will have been left with little or no money for weeks
19:23until officials correct their mistakes.
19:26These are sanctions which should never have been given in the first place.
19:29Yes.
19:30Dr David Webster has been researching the government's figures
19:33on sanctions.
19:35That seems like an awful lot of people wrongly sanctioned.
19:38It is. It is a lot of people wrongly sanctioned.
19:41And it would be even higher if more people appealed.
19:45And, of course, the problem is that even if you get your sanctioned
19:50decision overturned, you still go through quite a lengthy process
19:54when you've got no income or you're on a very heavily reduced income.
20:00Do sanctions push people into poverty?
20:03Basically, people who start poor are going to be driven
20:06into complete destitution.
20:12Suzanne Harkins and her husband found themselves on benefits
20:15for the first time when she lost her job
20:18and he became so ill he couldn't do his.
20:21Make us something nice for lunch.
20:23They were wrongly sanctioned after a clerical mix-up
20:27and their main benefit was cut to just £63 a week for a family of four.
20:33It was devastating.
20:35It got to a point that there was no food in the house
20:40and any food that did come in had to feed the two children
20:45and my husband and I would go for days at a time
20:51without eating.
20:53I was still breastfeeding Mason at the time
20:56and I stopped producing milk because I wasn't getting enough nourishment
21:01to me to produce milk to breastfeed him.
21:10Suzanne was referred to a food bank.
21:13The sanction was overturned and the money refunded,
21:16but the family had been on reduced benefits for three months.
21:21I think the whole sanction policy is a way of the government
21:26saving money and that probably does sound cynical
21:31but that's how I feel about it.
21:33Not about getting people into work?
21:35No, no.
21:41So are sanctions about saving money?
21:46Take a look at this wall chart.
21:49It was displayed in a job centre in Grantham last year.
21:53It's highlighting to staff the savings that sanctions can bring.
21:57More than £900 with one three-month sanction.
22:01What the department say to our members is that
22:05there isn't a target for the number of sanctions
22:08that you have to do each week or each month
22:11but we expect you to do the same as everybody else
22:14so they set a figure that may be the average in a certain cluster of offices
22:18and that becomes what you're expected to achieve.
22:21Now that is a target.
22:23It might not be called a target but to all intents and purposes it is.
22:27The government says the wall chart was an isolated local incident
22:32and does not reflect policy.
22:34It says there are no targets for benefit sanctions
22:37and they are used as a last resort.
22:39The vast majority of decisions are right
22:42and the appeals process is an important part of the safeguards put in place.
22:50But it's not just people on benefits who are struggling.
22:57Lisa Hall's landing home in a Bristol suburb after her shift at B&Q.
23:02She works 30 hours a week but still went to a food bank.
23:06She says she has gone days without a proper meal.
23:09Your stomach rumbles. You feel sick.
23:12You get jealous if you walk past a cafe or anything.
23:16It would be nice to have a certain type of food now
23:19that you haven't been able to afford for ages.
23:21Even sausages.
23:23I haven't eaten sausages for a while.
23:27Lisa takes home £900 a month
23:30but after bills including debts and running a car
23:33she's left with less than a tenner a week.
23:36Her kids have left home.
23:38With two empty bedrooms she no longer qualifies for the lower council rent
23:42thanks to the so-called bedroom tax.
23:45So why not move and save money?
23:48I don't want to downsize.
23:50I brought my children up in this house.
23:53I've got it the way I want it. It's my stamp on it.
23:56I don't want to move away to another neighbourhood.
23:58I don't want to go somewhere else.
24:01She's gone and got herself a second job.
24:04All right, thank you very much. Bye-bye.
24:07Delivering pizzas, sometimes working till four in the morning.
24:12Why are you doing this?
24:14To pay bills so I can stay in my house.
24:19And so I can eat.
24:21She now works up to 60 hours a week
24:24and doesn't need the food bank.
24:28The government has said food banks are not part of the welfare system
24:32but the line seems to be blurring.
24:35We've found that many are now receiving support from the taxpayer.
24:40This is Chinford in north-east London.
24:43It's where the government minister responsible for benefits changes,
24:46Ian Duncan-Smith, has his seat.
24:49He's been in office for a number of years now.
24:52He's been in office for a number of years now.
24:55Ian Duncan-Smith has his seat.
24:57His constituency takes in two councils
25:00and we've discovered that between them
25:02they've committed almost £70,000 to help feed people.
25:10We've contacted every council in England and Wales.
25:14Just over a third of them, 140 councils,
25:17confirmed that they were subsidising food banks.
25:21£2.9 million of public money
25:24has been committed to food poverty in the last couple of years.
25:30So are food banks becoming part of the welfare state?
25:36Whether it looks like we're becoming a substitute for the welfare state,
25:40they're valid concerns
25:42and they're the concerns that politicians and policymakers need to grapple with.
25:47Food banks are an inadequate plaster over a gaping wound.
25:51They do not solve the problems
25:53and that they should be enshrined as an inadequate solution is deeply immoral.
26:03We wanted to ask the government about food banks and our research.
26:09We first asked the government for an interview three months ago
26:12but nobody wants to talk to us about food banks.
26:15The Department for Work and Pensions referred us to the Cabinet Office.
26:18The Cabinet Office referred us back to the Department for Work and Pensions
26:22before we were then shunted on to the Prime Minister's own press team at Downing Street.
26:27But despite all that, no interview.
26:31In a statement, the government told us that local authorities
26:34are now responsible for emergency help
26:37and had been given additional funding to pay for it.
26:40It also said that it is helping families with the cost of living
26:44and that all its welfare reforms will make three million households better off.
26:49We need government to be explicit whether food banks are to be part of the system
26:54and if they are, then how do we make them work effectively.
26:57If they're not part of the system, again, we need a clear signal from government about that.
27:08Remember Steve in Bristol. He hasn't had to sign on for a while.
27:13OK, if you can let me up in.
27:15He's now working in a city centre bar.
27:18I'm less anxious, I'm less concerned about where my next income is coming from.
27:23Physically, obviously being able to eat a lot more now
27:28means that I should hopefully put a bit of weight back on
27:32and feel a lot more fresher and a bit more invigorated, I suppose.
27:38And he's not the only one with good news.
27:43Lisa's been able to get full-time hours with B&Q.
27:47She no longer needs her second job.
27:51How important was it to have the food bank at that time?
27:55Very important. It was like a lifeline.
27:59It helped me get by. It had food on the table.
28:02I was able to go and look for another job.
28:08I didn't feel hungry anymore.
28:12Many believe that food banks are here to stay.
28:15There's no doubt that they have helped many people.
28:18But the question remains.
28:20Do we want a Britain where so many people are living on food handouts?
28:30Next week, the real-life drama inside accident and emergency.
28:35Get the f*** out of here, you think you're in Portland too?
28:38We meet doctors and nurses ready for anything and everything.
28:42But is the pressure getting too much to take?
29:08You