Over 500,000 Britons Forced to Use Food Banks

Local Editor

More than half a million Britons have resorted to using food banks to stave off hunger, which is a figure that has tripled over the past year alone.

Major charities signaled their alarm over a dramatic rise in the UK's "hidden hungry" because of wage cuts, the squeeze on benefits and the continuing economic downturn.

The numbers have trebled in the past year alone and are likely to continue rising rapidly despite Britain's status as one of the world's wealthiest nations, according to a joint report by Oxfam and Church Action on Poverty.

The hunger crisis has been exacerbated by the falling living standards of many people in employment, who have seen their wages trimmed or their working hours cut, The British Independent UK reported.

The cost of basic foodstuffs has increased by 35% and the cost of heating a home by 63% in the past five years, in which many incomes have risen only marginally or not at all.

"This report calls for an urgent parliamentary inquiry into the relationship between benefit payment delays, errors or sanctions, welfare reforms and the growth in the numbers of "hidden hungry"," The daily mentioned.

"It is also damning about ministers' failure properly to monitor the problem, and calls for agencies to record and monitor people experiencing food poverty in order to establish more accurate numbers," it said.

Moreover, Imran Hussain, the head of policy for the Child Poverty Action Group, said, "It is a national scandal that half a million British people are now having to turn to food aid. It is a problem that has quickly escalated and shows that something has gone badly wrong with the safety net that is supposed to help families in need."

Source: The Independent UK, edited by website team