"My petition plea to Chancellor George Osborne: We need a Budget to end the scandal of UK hunger"
Hunger campaigner Jack Monroe launches a new petition calling for a Budget that repairs the safety net we may all need at some time in our lives
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In December, over 140,000 people signed my petition for Parliament to debate the stratospheric rise in food bank use.
Within days, with the support of the Daily Mirror, Unite the Union and the Trussell Trust, we got that debate. Yet over two months later, even more families are going hungry.
The good news is that more and more people from different walks of life are joining us in the fight to end UK hunger. Last week, as part of the End Hunger Fast campaign, 27 Anglican Bishops and 16 other clergy told David Cameron this can’t go on.
Just days before, Catholic Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols spoke out about UK hunger and its link to welfare reform. Meanwhile, the Archbishop of Canterbury has offered his bishops his full support.
Now, I need your help again. There is less than a month to the 2014 Budget on March 19. The government has hinted at further deep cuts to the welfare state, and so far has offered no answers to the crisis of low wages and high food prices that are driving people to food banks.
Meanwhile, last week, a DEFRA report came out during parliamentary recess that showed how the vast growth of food banks is not driving demand, which welfare minister Lord Freud has claimed. In fact, the report says the opposite is actually true.
So, today, I’m launching a new petition calling for a different kind of Budget. One that repairs the safety net we may all need at some time in our lives.
One that tackles high food prices and sets a living wage so that parents no longer have to work long hours and still can’t feed their children.
This and every budget should have a hunger test. Will it drive more families to food banks – or will it tackle the scandal of UK hunger?
Specifically, we demand that the Budget:
It’s a life of turning off the fridge because it’s empty anyway, of sitting across the table from your young son enviously staring down at his breakfast. Of having freezing cold showers and putting your child to bed in god knows how many layers of clothes in the evening.
It’s distressing. Depressing. Destabilising.
Imagine living for 11 weeks with no housing benefit, because of “delays”.
Imagine those 77 days of being chased for rent that you can’t pay, ignoring the phone, ignoring the door, drawing the curtains so the bailiffs can’t see that you’re home, cradling your son to your chest and sobbing that this is where it’s all ended up.
It feels endless. Hopeless. Cold. Wet. Day after day of “no”. No, we aren’t looking for staff. No, there isn’t anything else to eat. No, I can’t put the heating on. No, I haven’t got any money to pay my rent arrears. No, no, no.
A blog post I wrote 18 months ago, called Hunger Hurts went viral after I posted it in July 2012, describing the realities of poverty as an unemployed single mother.
But my story is not a unique one. From single parents that I met in Bristol at the Single Parents Action Network, to food bank users in Tower Hamlets, to a new, third food bank opening in my home town of Southend on Sea, people up and down the country are struggling to feed themselves and their families as a result of low wages, cuts and changes to benefits, zero hour contracts, benefit delays, and many other reasons.
Over half million people have received three days emergency food from Trussell Trust food banks since last Easter, having been referred by people like GPs, health visitors and schools.
Over one third of the food went to children.
As I write this, tens of thousands of kids in Britain are going hungry. Parents are looking at empty cupboards in despair, and wondering how to keep on skipping meals without their children noticing. Teenagers are turning up to school, weak and exhausted, and too hungry to learn.
Within days, with the support of the Daily Mirror, Unite the Union and the Trussell Trust, we got that debate. Yet over two months later, even more families are going hungry.
The good news is that more and more people from different walks of life are joining us in the fight to end UK hunger. Last week, as part of the End Hunger Fast campaign, 27 Anglican Bishops and 16 other clergy told David Cameron this can’t go on.
Just days before, Catholic Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols spoke out about UK hunger and its link to welfare reform. Meanwhile, the Archbishop of Canterbury has offered his bishops his full support.
Now, I need your help again. There is less than a month to the 2014 Budget on March 19. The government has hinted at further deep cuts to the welfare state, and so far has offered no answers to the crisis of low wages and high food prices that are driving people to food banks.
Meanwhile, last week, a DEFRA report came out during parliamentary recess that showed how the vast growth of food banks is not driving demand, which welfare minister Lord Freud has claimed. In fact, the report says the opposite is actually true.
So, today, I’m launching a new petition calling for a different kind of Budget. One that repairs the safety net we may all need at some time in our lives.
One that tackles high food prices and sets a living wage so that parents no longer have to work long hours and still can’t feed their children.
This and every budget should have a hunger test. Will it drive more families to food banks – or will it tackle the scandal of UK hunger?
Specifically, we demand that the Budget:
- Bring in a Living Wage so that families can put food on their own tables.
- Repair the safety net of the welfare state – end punitive sanctions, the Bedroom Tax and other welfare reforms that are driving people to food banks.
- Tackle rising food and energy costs.
- Make reference to the exponential rise in food banks and UK hunger. The first step, after all, is to acknowledge the elephant in the room.
It’s a life of turning off the fridge because it’s empty anyway, of sitting across the table from your young son enviously staring down at his breakfast. Of having freezing cold showers and putting your child to bed in god knows how many layers of clothes in the evening.
It’s distressing. Depressing. Destabilising.
Imagine living for 11 weeks with no housing benefit, because of “delays”.
Imagine those 77 days of being chased for rent that you can’t pay, ignoring the phone, ignoring the door, drawing the curtains so the bailiffs can’t see that you’re home, cradling your son to your chest and sobbing that this is where it’s all ended up.
It feels endless. Hopeless. Cold. Wet. Day after day of “no”. No, we aren’t looking for staff. No, there isn’t anything else to eat. No, I can’t put the heating on. No, I haven’t got any money to pay my rent arrears. No, no, no.
A blog post I wrote 18 months ago, called Hunger Hurts went viral after I posted it in July 2012, describing the realities of poverty as an unemployed single mother.
But my story is not a unique one. From single parents that I met in Bristol at the Single Parents Action Network, to food bank users in Tower Hamlets, to a new, third food bank opening in my home town of Southend on Sea, people up and down the country are struggling to feed themselves and their families as a result of low wages, cuts and changes to benefits, zero hour contracts, benefit delays, and many other reasons.
Over half million people have received three days emergency food from Trussell Trust food banks since last Easter, having been referred by people like GPs, health visitors and schools.
Over one third of the food went to children.
As I write this, tens of thousands of kids in Britain are going hungry. Parents are looking at empty cupboards in despair, and wondering how to keep on skipping meals without their children noticing. Teenagers are turning up to school, weak and exhausted, and too hungry to learn.
