Amber Rudd changes the Tory tune on food banks

What’s behind the rise in demand for food banks? Over the past few years, the default Conservative line has been that the reasons people need emergency help are ‘complex’. This is certainly true: the figures released by the Trussell Trust, which runs the largest network of food banks in the country, show that there is no one factor in food bank use. But those figures also show quite clearly that problems with the payments of benefits, or cuts to benefits, are a major driver: the top four reasons cited for referring someone to a food bank in 2017-18 were low income (28.49 per cent), benefit delays (23.74 per cent), benefit change (17.72 per cent) and debt (8.53 per cent). Other factors included homelessness, sickness, no recourse to public funds, domestic abuse, delayed wages, feeding children during the school holidays and being turned down for a short-term benefit advance.

Today, Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd took the unusual step of acknowledging this.