Even if senior Conservative MP Dominic Raab exemplifies their ignorance of how ordinary people live (Food banks not about poverty, just cashflow problems – MP, 30 May), the fact remains that not having the emergency resources even to buy food for the family is what poverty means in the UK. The essence of poverty is not having enough cash or other resources to buy yourself out of these everyday problems of fluctuating incomes and needs which non-poor people can cope with. That is the fundamental difference between the Tory assertion that recourse to food banks is just a cashflow problem which anyone may have, and the reality of intensities of poverty which have not been seen in the UK since before the welfare state was introduced. Even under the Poor Law from the middle ages until the introduction of national assistance, the state had a residual obligation to combat destitution, and under the various forms of social security and assistance local authorities had emergency funds and food banks weren’t needed. But this government has reintroduced destitution as a policy tool, thus destroying the defining principle of all welfare states, that they offer a minimum real level of living to all inhabitants. Mr Raab should be deeply ashamed that his government has reversed centuries of progress and left the relief of emergency poverty to private philanthropy alone.
Professor John Veit-Wilson
Newcastle upon Tyne
• The architects of food bank Britain may have resigned (Cameron and Duncan Smith) or been sacked (Osborne), but Theresa May and Philip Hammond were part of the same cabinet and therefore culpable. Austerity and welfare policies live on and the report by Ifan (Report reveals scale of food bank use in the UK, 29 May) is timely because May, after a flutter on the domestic agenda, has returned to Brexit and personal insults for the election. Apparently there is no room for food insecurity in one of the world’s leading economies so food bank use continues to rise and the Conservatives continue in denial. Theresa May has no answer to why nurses are using food banks and Dominic Raab’s comments are an insult to the intelligence. So an opinion piece from someone who knows why people use food banks is welcome (Cashflow problems? That’s not what brings people to my food bank, Dominic Raab,30 May). Hugh McNeill writes “I would love to be put out of a job” and the Tressell Trust has said that food banks must not become a permanent fixture in Britain. But until there is a radical change in the government’s attitude to poverty and disadvantage, to the UK’s shame, nothing will change.
Graham Ullathorne
Chesterfield, Derbyshire
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