I’m angry because actually lots of our
communities are suffering at the moment
and I’m going to give you the details
one billion people in the world tonight
will go to bed hungry a hundred and
fifty million people in Europe will go
to bed hungry our best estimates for the
UK are that probably eight million
people will go hungry tonight
I’ll come to London in a moment the
problem is we don’t know because the
government doesn’t collect those
statistics
these are best estimates for the UK so
I’m angry I’ve been talking about this
for 25 years and I’m in the next couple
years I hope to retire and sit with my
grandkids in the garden and I don’t want
to be talking about this in ten years
time we should solve this problem
because there is not a problem with food
we have enough food but we don’t get it
to the right people so that’s the data
Yeats quote I used to live and work in
Sligo so the new poverty what we’re
talking about is people are going hungry
in our communities I can take you to
restaurants a couple of hundred yards
from here where you pay over a hundred
pounds a meal I can take you to
communities down the back streets here
where people are going hungry tonight
and when I say people it’s usually
mothers because mothers sacrifice on
behalf of the rest of the family that’s
what happens so mothers will do it out
while while feeding the rest of the
family and this is a letter from a paper
saying and what happened is over a
period of time people’s people’s incomes
haven’t gone up it remains static food
prices went up 33 percent during the
economic crisis incomes remain steady
but other outgoings increased so people
made what we call sacrifices on food
foods the elastic item in the budget you
can compromise on food and that’s what
lots of people on low incomes done they
compromised on food because other
outgoings are fixed and this is a quote
from a paper and the guy’s saying I had
to meet my mortgage and I’m feeding my
kids dry bread and cereals that’s all I
have in the house
I put bruce springsteen into every talk
and if students get Bruce singing into
an essay they automatically get 10 marks
extra from me but he’s saying here that
the point is saying here is that he’s
talking about food banks and I’m gonna
move on to food banks in a moment in the
u.s. saying food banks are having a
problem coping giving out food but the
real problem was the bank’s the global
crisis and who got canned for the global
crisis a couple of bankers have been
jailed three bankers mainly Irish
bankers so we can clay claim to
something but the consequence of that
that food banks have increased we had no
food banks in the UK in 2000 we’ve seen
a massive growth because people are
suffering so that this is a global
crisis if I talk about Brazil if I talk
about India I talk about Portugal I talk
about the US or Canada we’re seeing this
massive growth of food banks as best
estimate in the UK what we’ve got is
that 14 million individuals are at risk
of what we call food poverty or food
insecurity probably a million people in
London at best estimates the Felix
project is saying they’re serving a
million meals a week which if you think
of but used people using that three
times as probably 300,000 people that go
hungry are also the same group that are
overweight they’re not two separate
groups so what but what we do is we
treat them under separate silos we don’t
have a comprehensive policy for dealing
with this and the basic problem is
poverty so these two things are linked
obesity and poverty there’s a huge
overlap the Venn diagrams overlap
massively people in food poverty are
more likely to be obese during the
recession people like us stopped eating
out there was a massive decrease between
2008 and 2012 and eating out the tour
didn’t stop beating out because they had
to think about do I turn on my oven or
do I heat my house and they could buy
cheap food on the high street all be a
inappropriate for health purposes and
obesity purposes and they fed their kids
their concern was with filling their
kids up and you know high fat salt sugar
does that it may be unhealthy in the
long term but they were making
compromises
since then we’ve all started eating out
again we’re fast approaching American
rates of eating out at the moment so
this is food security it’s across a
range so one level it’s worrying about
the ability to obtain food will I have
food tomorrow you compromise on quality
and variety reduce quantities you skip
meals and you experience hunger and most
of us in this room have not experienced
hunger like I’m talking about skipping a
meal this is not just hunger some of we
do that all the time because we’re busy
this is people systematically in a week
going without food the big driver for
this at the moment is the gig economy
people on zero hour contracts do not
know if they have money next week
they do not know how can they plan for a
meal because they don’t have the money
do they will they be at home or will
they have to get somebody in to look
after the kids the gig economy people
working in that sector are massively at
risk of being food insecure they’re the
biggest single growing users of food
banks doing this growing user the
biggest users are still those on welfare
benefits so this is the Trussell Trust
Christian charity of food banks only
accounts for half of all emergency food
in the UK 2006 that was the coverage and
2013 fort over 400 food banks they only
account for house it is now over a
thousand food banks in the UK run by
charities this is something government
should be doing not food banks up my
argument here isn’t there food banks are
the problem food banks the symptoms of a
problem so if I’m if you think I’m
getting at food banks I would say we
shouldn’t have food banks I would say
food banks and the rise of food banks
are an indicator of other of a wasted
society of a society that is not dealing
with people who are hungry
so this is some work from sustain the
national group for every one user of a
food bank there are eight others who are
food insecure they don’t get to a food
bank for whatever reason they’re too
embarrassed they don’t know how a joke
or a story I was working in Northern
Ireland recently and people from the
Catholic community we’re travelling
three miles to go to the protestant food
bank and the protestant people in the
protestant area were going three miles
go to the catholic food bank because
they did not want to be known by their
neighbors so they were you might be good
for integration you could argue but
nobody wants to be in poverty so there
is a shame in using food banks and this
is that this cut have we reached the
bottom yet while the rest of us are
making decisions about our River for
deliveries about shopping and Waitrose
or earlier little people are making
compromises and they’re making those
compromises for their families for the
kids and this is not an attack on food
banks this is an attack on the situation
that drives people to that and you’ve
all seen this you know Muslim food banks
say it’s not tins of baked beans as tins
of chickpeas they have a problem with
over massively oversubscribed you see
this in your supermarket donate more
this is this is a picture of a food bank
parcel they usually give out parcels for
three days and this is a duck this is a
drawing from a user now the problem with
this is it’s fine in so far as it goes
well most food banks can’t give out
fresh fruit and veg it’s difficult they
don’t have the facilities to do that
some do but most don’t or they give out
what we call dry packages and it’s got
so bad at the moment that the food banks
are giving out what we call kettle bags
which really is pot noodle
you only need a kettle to reheat because
people cannot turn on their oven have
they have to be worried about turning on
their electricity finish with this this
is I Daniel Blake I don’t know if you
saw its course it’s fiction but it’s
based on fact it’s based on absolutely
all the experience with we know we’ve
had working with food bank users
so I think what we need to do is end
poverty we need to bring back people who
are suffering and give them an adequate
wage I mean you said there many people
who work in the food industry are the
ones who suffer here as well people
working in sections of the food industry
are massively underpaid so I’m two
seconds away from finishing and I’m
finished thank you [Applause]