Ikke i Afrika, men i Storbritannia.

I Storbritannia strammes beltet enda et hakk. Antall personer som oppsøker matsentraler (food banks) er tredoblet fra ifjor. Over 350.000 har mottatt gratis mat fra matsentralene siden april iår. Det sitter langt inne å be om mat. Det oppleves ikke som sosialstøtte. Det er en råere. Folk forteller at de har grått før de går hjemmefra.

David Cameron’s own poverty tsar warned last night of the danger of food banks becoming an “institutional part” of the welfare state – and urged the Prime Minister to set up an inquiry into the issue. Frank Field, a welfare minister under Labour, told The Independent he was shocked by the steep increase in their use and added: “Something very serious is happening to people at the bottom of society.”

“If you had said to me 10 years ago that we would be discussing the use of food banks, I would have led you to a dark room to recover.”

Trussell Trust har som mål at det skal være en matsentral i hver by. Så langt har de nesten 400. Nyheten kommer bare noen dager etter at Røde Kors annonserte at de planlegger matdistribusjon til fattige i Storbritannia til vinteren. Det er første gang siden 2.verdenskrig.

Chris Johnes, Oxfam’s UK poverty programme director, said: “These figures lay bare the shocking scale of destitution, hardship and hunger in the UK. It is completely unacceptable that in the seventh wealthiest nation on the planet, the number of people turning to food banks has tripled.”

En talsmann fra statministerens kontor uttaler:

“Food bank use went up 10 times under Labour. One of the reasons it has increased under this Government is that we have removed the block Labour put in place preventing jobcentres from referring people to food banks.“

The Independent  Trussell Trust