Forum topic: When nearly 3 million emergency food parcels are needed, it's time to Guarantee our Essentials
When nearly 3 million emergency food parcels are needed, it's time to Guarantee our Essentials
PGC Webmaster
26 Apr 2023 23:58 6836
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We live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, but hundreds of thousands of people here in the UK are going without the essentials we all need to get by.
Anyone's circumstances can change. Losing your job, needing to care for a sick family member, breaking up with your partner - these are things that can happen to any of us.
That's why Universal Credit should offer support to anyone in need of help, but right now, it's not providing enough to cover the cost of life's essentials, such as food, household bills or travel costs and more people than ever are being driven to food banks.
Emergency food parcels distributed by food banks in the Trussell Trust network have soared to close to 3 million (2,986,203) between April 2022 and March 2023, including more than a million food parcels given to children.
These alarming numbers show that the social security system isn't protecting people from going without. The significant shortfall between people's living costs and the basic rate of Universal Credit is leaving people with no option but to seek support from a food bank. This simply isn't right.
We're calling on all MPs to take action on this situation and the harm it is doing to people in our communities. We must call for change to make sure they do.
This means calling on the UK government to introduce an Essentials Guarantee in our social security system so that, at a minimum, Universal Credit protects people from going without the essentials.
Together we can send a clear message to all MPs and ask for their support of the campaign.
Please take action now.
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When nearly 3 million emergency food parcels are needed, it's time to Guarantee our Essentials
Basil Clarke
27 Apr 2023 00:04 6837
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People on the breadline who receive more money won't squirrel it away in savings or Swiss bank accounts. They'll spend it almost immediately. There will be VAT paid on many of the things they buy, the money spent in shops will end up in shop workers' wages, that will be taxed. The government will get almost all the money back very quickly, and on the way it will have helped people and boosted the economy.
Furthermore, people with fewer money worries will be less stressed and their health will improve, saving the health service money.
Quite apart from being humane, it just makes sense!
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When nearly 3 million emergency food parcels are needed, it's time to Guarantee our Essentials
Darren Edgar
27 Apr 2023 12:09 6838
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When nearly 3 million emergency food parcels are needed, it's time to Guarantee our Essentials
Karl Brown
27 Apr 2023 14:27 6839
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Before a Q&A session, he links inequality to democracy, covering aspects such as Universal Basic Income and Citizens Assemblies. Most revealing for me he covers” democracy vouchers”, as used in Seattle for the last three years. Here the large scale and inevitably issue skewing political donations seen in the UK are ruled out and instead every citizen gets a democracy voucher – call it £50 notional. Politicians are therefore forced to address the whole voting population (equally) in their efforts to get elected rather than positioning themselves towards their richer funders, and so often disenfranchising the rest of us when so doing. Simple and quite brilliant, as I thought were a few of the other points.
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