Government Spending Review 2013

I shall try to be helpful. Like many people, I take the view that we live in a country where food banks should not be necessary, but unfortunately they have been necessary for a long time because the same issues of delays over benefits and various kinds of crises have affected those at the bottom. As I understand it, during the Labour years, job centres were not permitted to refer clients to food banks. As noble Lords know, you can go to a food bank only with a reference from an appropriate person: a job centre, a doctor or a limited number of other people. You cannot just turn up and make a claim. Today, job centres offer vouchers where they think there is need, but that need is not very different from the need that existed before. Food banks were just not announced.