Lee Anderson: Food bank says demand triples as donations fall

Demand for food banks has "tripled" while donations have dropped, the manager of one centre has said.

Andrew Butcher, of the Taff Ely food bank in Rhondda Cynon Taf, said he had seen three months' worth of clients at the food bank in three weeks.

It comes after Conservative MP Lee Anderson said people who used food banks did not know how to cook or budget properly.

His comments were branded "out of touch" and "beyond belief".

Mr Butcher told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast Mr Anderson's comments were "ridiculous" and the food bank was starting to see people who were working using their services.

He said: "It's desperate times, especially with the cost of living.

"We serviced the same amount of clients in the last three weeks as we have in the first three months of the year."

Research from Loughborough University and Marie Curie has found 90,000 people in the UK die in poverty every year, with those in Wales facing the greatest risk.

Meanwhile, the Office for National Statistics announced the UK economy shrank by 0.1% in March amid high inflation.

Mr Butcher added the food bank used to collect donations from a supermarket two to three times a week, but this had recently fallen to once a week.

"What we found was we're still getting donations but the quantity of the donations has significantly dropped," he added.

He also said there was still a lot of "stigma" regarding people coming to food banks for help and encouraged people who were struggling for food to get in contact.

On Wednesday, Sarah, not her real name, from Anglesey, told Jeremy Vine she had been working two jobs, but has still had to use a food bank in recent weeks after rent and fuel increases.

She said: "I never thought I'd use a food bank.

"We saw on social media that there was a local council hardship fund, which we applied for, and from that I had a phone call from somebody from the council who very quickly gave us a four week little voucher for using the food bank."

Stuart Anthony, 38, from Pontyclun, said without the food bank he would "starve".

The former charity administrator lost his job and became homeless during the pandemic, he told BBC Wales he had previously gone two days without eating anything.

He said he saw the food bank as a lifeline.

Steffan Evans, head of policy at the Bevan Foundation think tank, said Mr Anderson's comments did not represent the experiences of people living in Wales.

He said: "We know that people don't use food banks unless they absolutely have to, it's really disappointing that still in this point, over a number of years of evidence, that MPs still aren't aware of that."

He added the charity had already seen a quarter of Welsh households cutting back on food shopping in November and the situation was likely to have deteriorated following recent price rises in food, energy and fuel.

He said: "If people have got less money to spend on things beyond the essentials, unfortunately we are going to start seeing people cutting back, not just on going out to restaurants or going on holiday but people's ability to donate to food banks or other charities."