Dr Rowan Williams on food bank crisis

Dr Rowan Williams: Food bank users are not scroungers and this isn't a hiccup - it’s a serious crisis 

The former Archbishop of Canterbury says the number of people using food banks is doubling annually, which shows how serious the situation is

 

Pitching in: Dr Williams helps at a food bank in Cambridge

For the last few years I have heard stories from people I am in touch with pastorally. They are almost always the same – stories of people who have hit an ­unexpected bump in the road.

It may be a missed pay cheque, a family illness or a form that has gone astray – things that might not make much of a difference in more secure circumstances. But in these hard times people do not have that safety net and they fall through the gaps.

People who are using food banks are not scroungers who are cynically trying to work the system. They are drawn from the six million working poor in this country, people who are struggling to make ends meet in low paid or bitty employment.

They cannot just turn up at a food bank. They have to be properly assessed and found to need emergency help. Despite that, the number of people using food banks is doubling annually. When you think about that, you start to realise how serious the situation is.

That is why I agreed to be patron of the food banks in Cambridge. You tend to think of hunger as a problem elsewhere, but it is happening right here in our own communities.

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