:00:07. > :00:16.Tonight on Panorama: Food banks are opening all over Britain. My husband
:00:17. > :00:25.and I would go for days at a time without eating. Feeding people who
:00:26. > :00:30.say they cannot afford to eat. You just have half a tin of red kidney
:00:31. > :00:35.beans. The Government says it is the offer of free food that is fuelling
:00:36. > :00:39.demand so are people just out for a freebie? What used to happen was
:00:40. > :00:44.that putting food on the table was the first choice and now for many
:00:45. > :00:50.people it is not the first choice. Or has the new benefit regime
:00:51. > :00:54.created a hunger crisis? You can debate whether they deserve the
:00:55. > :01:07.money or not but don't starve them while you are doing that. We look at
:01:08. > :01:09.how thousands of people are losing their benefits. People who start
:01:10. > :01:11.poor will going to be driven into complete destitution. And our food
:01:12. > :01:17.banks becoming part of the welfare state? If people don't have enough
:01:18. > :01:33.to eat, I have to do something about it.
:01:34. > :01:44.It is a cold Sunday afternoon in Bristol. Dozens are queueing for
:01:45. > :01:49.free food from Anglican nuns. First in line R Blake and Sharron. Sharron
:01:50. > :01:54.is 19 and five months pregnant. She spent last night in hospital. Her
:01:55. > :01:59.midwife was worried she was not eating enough for her and her baby.
:02:00. > :02:04.I have not been eating properly and I have only been going to the soup
:02:05. > :02:08.run. I had publications with my pregnancies though I was in
:02:09. > :02:15.hospital. What would happen if you would not have this place to come
:02:16. > :02:19.to? Crash and burn, to be honest. They live in a local hospital and
:02:20. > :02:26.both on benefits but they say they cannot afford to buy food. What
:02:27. > :02:29.steps do you have? The contract with my telephone provider and a loan
:02:30. > :02:44.shark, basically, when you take money out online. How much do you
:02:45. > :02:50.owe? Round about two grand, I think. The nuns say demand is rising. Many
:02:51. > :02:58.here have drug and alcohol problems. Most don't want us to show their
:02:59. > :03:02.faces. Next green ticket, please. We have a system where we do not ask
:03:03. > :03:06.any questions but it is a demeaning thing to ask for food. On the
:03:07. > :03:11.whole, the people we meet here are not trying to play the system at
:03:12. > :03:17.all. They are people who have really got a very difficult situation. Free
:03:18. > :03:23.clothing is on offer, so Sharron is picking out baby grows. It is so
:03:24. > :03:32.cute. Are you worried about bringing a small baby into your world at the
:03:33. > :03:44.minute without any money? Slightly, yes. Hopefully it will get better.
:03:45. > :03:53.In time. Today, in just 90 minutes, 228 people have got food. Bristol is
:03:54. > :03:58.one of the wealthiest cities in the country but there are 50 places here
:03:59. > :04:00.where you can go and get free food. In fact, over the last three years,
:04:01. > :04:12.a dozen food banks have opened here. On the other side of Bristol, Steve
:04:13. > :04:21.Hutson sits in the dark to cut down on his bills. He is broke and not
:04:22. > :04:27.yet on benefits. How long has it been since you had your last hot
:04:28. > :04:39.dinner? What is today? Wednesday? Thursday even. About five days since
:04:40. > :04:47.the last proper cooked meal. What are you surviving on? The last
:04:48. > :04:57.couple of days has been nothing, really. Other than that, since then,
:04:58. > :05:05.I have had some pieces of toast. And some porridge and that really has
:05:06. > :05:16.been it. Steve, who is 27, used to dream of playing for Bristol Rovers.
:05:17. > :05:25.Can I see your fridge? Yes. You just have half a tin of red kidney beans.
:05:26. > :05:34.And a bit of ketchup. That is all you have. Yes.
:05:35. > :05:40.Steve is a recovering drug addict. He has had a chaotic lifestyle and
:05:41. > :05:45.has fallen out with friends and family. There is always some kind of
:05:46. > :05:50.crisis in my life. People ask how you keep smiling but you just
:05:51. > :05:54.cracked on, you just deal with it. He got a part-time job in a
:05:55. > :05:59.restaurant but it has not worked out and now he is back on benefits. He
:06:00. > :06:09.does not have the bus fire, so it is a four mile walk to the Jobcentre.
:06:10. > :06:14.-- the bus fare. What will you eat tonight? At the moment, I don't
:06:15. > :06:20.know. Probably nothing. Probably not. Do you have any toast in the
:06:21. > :06:27.house? I used the last bit of bread earlier in the week. Steve knows he
:06:28. > :06:33.is partly to blame for his situation but he is not the only one who says
:06:34. > :06:44.he is going hungry. In Bristol, food banks estimate they help to feed
:06:45. > :06:48.around 8000 people last year. The East Bristol food bank is run in
:06:49. > :06:55.partnership with the Trussell Trust, the church -based network of food
:06:56. > :07:01.banks. Five years ago, the Trussell Trust had just 50 food banks. Today
:07:02. > :07:06.it is more than 400. Here people have to be referred to get free
:07:07. > :07:13.food. It may be a social worker working with the family that is
:07:14. > :07:17.struggling to put food on the table. Maybe somebody referred by the
:07:18. > :07:21.Jobcentre who has lost work or is changing their benefits. Different
:07:22. > :07:27.people refer people for different reasons. Once referred, people get
:07:28. > :07:32.enough food for three days. The aim is to give people a balanced diet.
:07:33. > :07:38.People are coming here for fruit juice, tins of meat, tins of tuna.
:07:39. > :07:45.Simple, basic things. Tens of rice pudding. We don't give out lobster
:07:46. > :07:57.Thermidor. We give out basic food. It is impossible to say how many
:07:58. > :08:00.people are being fed by food banks but the Trussell Trust say they
:08:01. > :08:02.helped to feed hundreds of thousands of people last year, and they say
:08:03. > :08:06.demand has tripled since 2012. The Government says that the food banks
:08:07. > :08:09.are helping drive demand by offering free food. Let me quote from
:08:10. > :08:13.somebody who runs the Oxford food bank. Food banks do a good service
:08:14. > :08:17.but they have been much in the news. People know they are free, they know
:08:18. > :08:21.about them and they will ask social workers to refer them. It would be
:08:22. > :08:27.wrong to pretend that the publicity has not been a drive in the
:08:28. > :08:31.increased use. To suggest that people are walking through the door
:08:32. > :08:36.because it is a freebie and they can take advantage, that is to suggest
:08:37. > :08:40.that 18,000 agencies in the UK are collectively colluding because they
:08:41. > :08:46.are the ones signing the forms that say please help this person because
:08:47. > :08:49.they are in trouble. 11 days ago, a group of Anglican bishops published
:08:50. > :08:55.an open letter saying Britain faced a hunger crisis. They were accused
:08:56. > :08:58.of exaggerating the problem. Obviously they had a right to speak
:08:59. > :09:03.out. As a fellow Christian, of course they need to speak out when
:09:04. > :09:08.they see concerns about people in their parish and beyond that they
:09:09. > :09:12.feel are in need. Were they wrong? They were wrong to do it in the way
:09:13. > :09:17.they did it, because I felt they were being used as pawns in a
:09:18. > :09:20.political agenda. I don't think we are pawns of anybody's agenda. Any
:09:21. > :09:26.debate about the affairs of the people in the country will have a
:09:27. > :09:30.political element. Desmond Tutu said there comes a point when you fit
:09:31. > :09:34.enough people out of the river, you stroll up stream and see why people
:09:35. > :09:39.are falling in, and at that point you are never to be drawn into
:09:40. > :09:44.politics. Two weeks on, Steve still has no work. He got a small tax
:09:45. > :09:49.rebate but most of it went to a loan shark. His first benefits payment is
:09:50. > :09:57.lower than he hoped. Just ?55 for the next two weeks. I suppose I feel
:09:58. > :10:01.deflated, really, especially as I was anticipating more. He was
:10:02. > :10:07.relying on free food again. Most of his benefits went on debts, gas and
:10:08. > :10:15.electricity. Steve says he is left with ?2 75 for the next fortnight.
:10:16. > :10:19.The staff are great. They don't judge you. They don't have
:10:20. > :10:28.pre-judgement on anybody. If it was not for the food bank, I dread to
:10:29. > :10:32.think what would be the case. It is 5am and the start of a busy day for
:10:33. > :10:40.yet another organisation running food banks in Bristol. It is called
:10:41. > :10:43.the Matthew Tree Project. Evangelical Christian Mark Goodway
:10:44. > :10:49.is delivering a new day's food supply. He is about to open his
:10:50. > :10:56.seventh food bank. He calls them food stores. Does Bristol really
:10:57. > :11:01.need seven food stores in addition to all the other food banks and
:11:02. > :11:05.other places where you can get free food? Absolutely. I have turned my
:11:06. > :11:11.life upside down to do this and I am not of a mind to do this if there is
:11:12. > :11:15.no need to be met. Is volunteers handed out 43 tonnes of food last
:11:16. > :11:20.year but Mark does not just want to feed people. He wants to turn their
:11:21. > :11:33.lives around. People are expected to show their bank statements when they
:11:34. > :11:36.get free food. Is that intrusive? No. I don't think it is intrusive.
:11:37. > :11:38.If somebody is coming to us because they are in financial hardship and
:11:39. > :11:42.they are asking for help to help them out of the financial problems
:11:43. > :11:45.they are in, we need to know what is going on. The recession has left
:11:46. > :11:48.many worse off than five years ago. A Government commissioned report
:11:49. > :11:52.published recently dismissed the idea that people are taking
:11:53. > :11:57.advantage of free food. The author says some people are simply broke.
:11:58. > :12:01.The reason we have so many more food banks in the UK is because we have
:12:02. > :12:06.so many more people in need. Food prices have gone up about 32%
:12:07. > :12:12.depending on which foodstuff you are talking about, over five or six
:12:13. > :12:21.years. Over the same period, wages have stayed the same or they have
:12:22. > :12:23.fallen. The Government says that the job is the best way out of poverty
:12:24. > :12:29.and unemployment levels are now falling. But the latest figures
:12:30. > :12:35.dating back to 2012 show 9.8 million people in relative poverty. That is
:12:36. > :12:41.those living on less than 60% of the average income. In Derbyshire, they
:12:42. > :12:45.are taking radical action. The main public health concern used to be
:12:46. > :12:51.healthy eating but now the County Council says there is a more
:12:52. > :12:54.pressing problem. It has become an issue of food poverty and some
:12:55. > :12:59.people in the county not being able to eat at all. If they cannot eat at
:13:00. > :13:03.all, what is the point in promoting healthy eating? I am responsible for
:13:04. > :13:06.promoting the health of people in Derbyshire and if people have not
:13:07. > :13:15.got enough food to eat, I have to do something about it. The council is
:13:16. > :13:23.investing ?126,000 from its public health budget into food banks. Tell
:13:24. > :13:31.me what I am eating. But not everybody thinks they are good idea.
:13:32. > :13:35.Former Tory junior health minister Edwina Currie lives in Derbyshire
:13:36. > :13:41.herself. We have invited her to a food bank down the road. Let me show
:13:42. > :13:45.you the food bank area. It was set up by Christian Thorpe, a pastor
:13:46. > :13:51.whose church now feeds about 60 people each week. It's food bank has
:13:52. > :13:58.been given ?9,500 from the council fund. Honestly, does it not worry
:13:59. > :14:04.you that this is the stuff you are giving them? Can I say something? If
:14:05. > :14:09.you have nothing, nothing at all, then a little bit of something is
:14:10. > :14:12.better than a lot of nothing. How will you get the message across that
:14:13. > :14:19.they have to live within their means, not get indebted, plan for a
:14:20. > :14:23.rainy day, or the old-fashioned lessons that my generation learned?
:14:24. > :14:27.Yes, we are working with other agencies. We are trying to teach
:14:28. > :14:31.people to take responsibility. We encourage people to talk to people
:14:32. > :14:38.and there are some people who listen and others who do not. I think this
:14:39. > :14:45.is a bit of a trap. I disagree. For me this is not the solution. I
:14:46. > :14:50.disagree. It is clear the visit has not changed her mind. I don't think
:14:51. > :14:55.there is a need for food banks. I think there is a need for support
:14:56. > :15:01.for people with problems. But you do think there is food poverty? I
:15:02. > :15:06.don't. I think people make choices. What used to happen was putting food
:15:07. > :15:09.on the table was the first choice. And now for many people it is not
:15:10. > :15:17.the first choice at one of the reasons for that if they can get
:15:18. > :15:23.free food. -- is they can get free food. Back in Bristol, some say it
:15:24. > :15:27.is not the question of choice. People are going hungry because they
:15:28. > :15:32.suddenly have no money. The biggest single driver for your food stores
:15:33. > :15:37.this year has been what? Benefit changes. 23% of our clients, the
:15:38. > :15:41.biggest group, are here because their benefits have been stopped or
:15:42. > :15:46.reduced to such a level that they cannot survive. We have been told it
:15:47. > :15:52.is the same story across the country. Figures from food banks
:15:53. > :15:55.show problems caused by benefits are the biggest single reason why people
:15:56. > :15:58.are getting free food. That's been confirmed by the Citizens Advice
:15:59. > :16:02.Bureau. But the Government says there is no robust evidence of a
:16:03. > :16:08.link between welfare reform and the rush for free food. The Government
:16:09. > :16:13.says its benefit reforms will encourage the unemployed to get
:16:14. > :16:19.work. They're aimed at people like Ian Hoswell. After he missed
:16:20. > :16:24.meetings at his Bristol job centre, his jobseeker's allowance was cut
:16:25. > :16:33.completely for three months. He went from ?71 a week to nothing. It's
:16:34. > :16:40.called being sanctioned. Guilty as charged. For whatever reason it was,
:16:41. > :16:44.maybe I was ill, maybe I had the flu that day, I just do not... I cannot
:16:45. > :16:49.remember... But it seems such a drastic punishment. If you are
:16:50. > :16:54.judged to have broken the rules you automatically lose your jobseeker's
:16:55. > :16:59.allowance for at least a month. The toughest penalty - three years. The
:17:00. > :17:03.Department for Work and Pensions says rules are made clear to
:17:04. > :17:10.claimants and people can apply for hardship payments and loans. Ian did
:17:11. > :17:16.apply and qualified for a hardship payment of ?43 a week. But most
:17:17. > :17:25.people don't get the cash for a fortnight. Ian had to sell his CDs
:17:26. > :17:28.so he could eat. The lowest point was just eating a box of cornflakes,
:17:29. > :17:32.dry, sitting in the dark, no electric. Spent three days like
:17:33. > :17:44.that. After his bills were paid, Ian's ?43 hardship payment didn't go
:17:45. > :17:48.far. The fact he smokes didn't help. What would you say to these people
:17:49. > :17:51.who would say, look, you had a choice there, you spent the money on
:17:52. > :17:54.cigarettes rather than food? I was under enough stress at the time from
:17:55. > :17:58.the Government sanctions. Packing in smoking at the time would just add
:17:59. > :18:08.more stress onto me which I just couldn't cope with at the time. With
:18:09. > :18:14.little money left, Ian had to rely on the Matthew Tree Project to eat.
:18:15. > :18:17.What did you enjoy from last time? Usually the meatballs which I had
:18:18. > :18:20.with pasta. A record number of benefits sanctions were imposed in
:18:21. > :18:45.the year to last September. A total of 875,000. So that means to say
:18:46. > :18:49.they had got either no money coming at all or virtually no money coming
:18:50. > :18:53.in, so it's impossible to survive on that. You could have the debate as
:18:54. > :18:56.to whether they deserve the money or not, but don't starve them while
:18:57. > :18:59.you're doing that. People should be treated with dignity, you know
:19:00. > :19:03.whatever their situation. There will be people who attend there who are
:19:04. > :19:07.in crisis, and yes, there will be some that have been in part of the
:19:08. > :19:10.system of sanctions and within that system is trying to ensure that
:19:11. > :19:13.local authorities are supported with hardship funds to be able to help
:19:14. > :19:17.people through that process. We don't simply walk on the other side
:19:18. > :19:19.when that happens. In the latest Government figures we've found a
:19:20. > :19:22.shocking statistic. In 11 months, more than 133,000 sanctions were
:19:23. > :19:26.overturned. That's almost 400 every day. But it can take weeks to
:19:27. > :19:29.challenge an unfair sanction and get the cash back. Now what that means,
:19:30. > :19:32.of course, is that people will be left with little or no money until
:19:33. > :19:36.officials correct their mistakes. These essentially are sanctions that
:19:37. > :19:39.should never have been given in the first place. Yes, yes. Dr David
:19:40. > :19:43.Webster has been researching the government's figures on sanctions.
:19:44. > :19:47.That seems like an awful lot of people wrongly sanctioned. It is. It
:19:48. > :19:56.is a lot of people wrongly sanctioned, and it would be even
:19:57. > :20:00.higher if more people appealed. And of course the problem is that even
:20:01. > :20:03.if you get your sanction decision overturned you still go through
:20:04. > :20:07.quite a lengthy period when you've got no income, or on - or you're on
:20:08. > :20:10.a very heavily reduced income. Do sanctions push people into poverty?
:20:11. > :20:15.Basically, people who start poor are going to be driven into complete
:20:16. > :20:19.destitution. Suzanne Harkins and her husband found themselves on benefits
:20:20. > :20:25.for the first time when she lost her job and he became so ill he couldn't
:20:26. > :20:34.do his. Make us something nice for lunch. Yeah. They were wrongly
:20:35. > :20:38.sanctioned after a clerical mix up and their main benefit was cut to
:20:39. > :20:47.just ?63 a week for a family of four. It was devastating. It got to
:20:48. > :20:51.a point that there was no food in the house and any food that did come
:20:52. > :20:55.in had to feed the two children and my husband, and I would go for days
:20:56. > :20:58.at a time without eating. I was still breast-feeding Mason at the
:20:59. > :21:01.time and I stopped producing milk because I wasn't getting enough
:21:02. > :21:14.nourishment into me to produce milk to breast-feed him. Suzanne was
:21:15. > :21:17.referred to a food bank. The sanction was overturned and the
:21:18. > :21:25.money refunded, but the family had been on reduced benefits for three
:21:26. > :21:30.months. I think the whole sanction policy is a way of the Government
:21:31. > :21:37.saving money. And that probably does sound cynical but that's how I feel
:21:38. > :21:47.about it. Not about getting people into work? No, no.
:21:48. > :21:56.So are sanctions about saving money? Take a look at this wall chart. It
:21:57. > :21:59.was displayed in a Jobcentre in Grantham last year. It's
:22:00. > :22:09.highlighting to staff the savings that sanctions can bring. More than
:22:10. > :22:13.?900 with one three-month sanction. Well, the department say to our
:22:14. > :22:17.members is that there isn't a target for the number of sanctions that you
:22:18. > :22:21.have to do each week or each month, but we expect you to do the same as
:22:22. > :22:25.everybody else. So they set a figure that maybe the average in a certain
:22:26. > :22:28.cluster of offices, and um, that becomes what you're expected to
:22:29. > :22:32.achieve. Now that is a target. It might not be called a target but to
:22:33. > :22:36.all intents and purposes it is. The Government says the wall chart was
:22:37. > :22:39.an isolated local incident and does not reflect policy. It says there
:22:40. > :22:43.are no targets for benefit sanctions and they are used as a last resort.
:22:44. > :22:46.The vast majority of decisions are right and the appeals process is an
:22:47. > :23:00.important part of the safeguards put in place. But it's not just people
:23:01. > :23:03.on benefits who are struggling. Lisa Hall's landing home in a Bristol
:23:04. > :23:08.suburb after her shift at B She works 30 hours a week but still went
:23:09. > :23:14.to a food bank. She says she's gone days without a proper meal. Your
:23:15. > :23:18.stomach rumbles, you feel sick, you get jealous if you walk past a cafe
:23:19. > :23:22.or anything, it would be nice to have a certain type of food now that
:23:23. > :23:29.you haven't been able to afford for ages. Even sausages. I haven't eaten
:23:30. > :23:33.sausages for a while. Lisa takes home ?900 a month but after bills,
:23:34. > :23:39.including debts and running a car, she's left with less than a tenner a
:23:40. > :23:42.week. Her kids have left home. With two empty bedrooms she no longer
:23:43. > :23:49.qualifies for the lower council rent thanks to the so-called bedroom tax.
:23:50. > :23:56.So why not move and save money? I don't want to downsize, I brought my
:23:57. > :24:00.children up in this house. I've got it the way I want it, it's my stamp
:24:01. > :24:06.on it. I don't want to move to another neighbourhood, I don't want
:24:07. > :24:12.to go somewhere else. She's gone and got herself a second job. All right,
:24:13. > :24:17.thank you very much. Bye-bye. Delivering pizzas. Sometimes working
:24:18. > :24:23.till four in the morning. Why are you doing this? To pay
:24:24. > :24:30.bills. So I can stay in my house. And so I can eat. She now works up
:24:31. > :24:40.to 60 hours a week and doesn't need the food bank. The Government has
:24:41. > :24:45.said food banks are not part of the welfare system, but the line seems
:24:46. > :24:50.to be blurring. We've found that many are now receiving support from
:24:51. > :24:54.the tax payer. This is Chingford in North East London. It's where the
:24:55. > :24:58.Government minister responsible for benefits changes - Iain Duncan Smith
:24:59. > :25:01.- has his seat. His constituency takes in two councils, and we've
:25:02. > :25:11.discovered that between them they've committed almost ?70,000 to help
:25:12. > :25:23.feed people. We've contacted every council in England and Wales. Just
:25:24. > :25:26.over a third of them, 140 councils, confirmed that they were subsidising
:25:27. > :25:30.food banks. ?2.9 million of public money has been committed to food
:25:31. > :25:40.poverty in the last couple of years. So, are food banks becoming part of
:25:41. > :25:43.the welfare state? Whether it looks like we're, er, becoming a
:25:44. > :25:46.substitute for the welfare state, they're...they're valid concerns.
:25:47. > :25:51.And they are the concerns that politicians and policy makers need
:25:52. > :25:54.to grapple with. Food banks are an inadequate plaster over a gaping
:25:55. > :25:58.wound. They do not solve the problems. And that they should be
:25:59. > :26:06.enshrined as an inadequate solution is deeply immoral. We wanted to ask
:26:07. > :26:12.the Government about food banks and our research. We first asked the
:26:13. > :26:15.Government for an interview three months ago but nobody wants to talk
:26:16. > :26:18.to us about food banks. The Department for Work and Pensions
:26:19. > :26:22.referred us to the Cabinet Office. The Cabinet Office referred us back
:26:23. > :26:25.to the Department for Work and Pensions. Then we were shunted to
:26:26. > :26:35.the Prime Minister's own press team at Downing Street. But despite all
:26:36. > :26:38.that, no interview. In a statement, the Government told us that local
:26:39. > :26:42.authorities are now responsible for emergency help, and had been given
:26:43. > :26:45.additional funding to pay for it. It also said that it is helping
:26:46. > :26:48.families with the cost of living, and that all its welfare reforms
:26:49. > :27:00.will make three million households better off. We need Government to be
:27:01. > :27:04.explicit whether food banks are to be part of the system, and if they
:27:05. > :27:09.are, then how do we make them work effectively. If they are not part of
:27:10. > :27:13.the system, again we need a clear signal from Government about that.
:27:14. > :27:17.Remember Steve in Bristol? He's hasn't had to sign on for a while.
:27:18. > :27:26.OK, if you could enter your PIN? He's now working in a city centre
:27:27. > :27:30.bar. I'm less anxious, I'm less concerned about where my next income
:27:31. > :27:33.is coming from. Physically, obviously, being able to eat a lot
:27:34. > :27:38.more now means that, you know, hopefully I should put a bit of
:27:39. > :27:41.weight back on and feel a lot more fresher and a bit more invigorated,
:27:42. > :27:48.I suppose. And he's not the only one with good news. Lisa's been able to
:27:49. > :27:59.get full time hours with B She no longer needs her second job.
:28:00. > :28:02.How important was it to have the food bank at that time? Very
:28:03. > :28:07.important. It was like a lifeline. It helped me get by. I had food on
:28:08. > :28:14.the table, I was able to go and look for another job. I didn't feel
:28:15. > :28:19.hungry any more. Many believe that food banks are here to stay. There's
:28:20. > :28:23.no doubt that they have helped many people, but the question remains. Do
:28:24. > :28:43.we want a Britain where so many people are living on food hand-outs?
:28:44. > :28:50.Next week: The real life drama inside accident and emergency. We
:28:51. > :28:53.meet doctors and nurses ready for anything and everything. But is the
:28:54. > :28:59.pressure getting too much to take?