The welfare state safety net is “riddled with holes” after years of austerity, the depute leader of West Lothian Council claimed this week as she backed a campaign by food banks for an uplift in the basic rate of Universal Credit.
In a year which has seen local volunteers provide almost 6,000 emergency food parcels, West Lothian’s Food Bank has called for support for a national campaign to increase UC payments to meet soaring costs.
The basic rate of UC is £85 a week, but the national food bank charity the Trussell Trust says it costs £120 a week for a person to cover essential costs including heating, eating and travel.
Councillor Kirsteen Sullivan, Labour member for Whitburn and Blackburn said: “This campaign highlights a really important point - the basic level of Universal Credit fails to cover the cost of everyday essentials including food.”
Kathleen Neilly, the manager of West Lothian Food Bank said: “ In our food bank, the majority of the people that we support are on Universal Credit, including many who will also be in work.
“With around 16,000 people in West Lothian on Universal Credit the food bank has faced massive demand in the last 12 months.
Kathleen told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “We are on the front line of the cost of living crisis, seeing the horrifying impact of our failing social security system.
“In the last 12 months we provided 5,885 emergency food parcels to 10,962 local people who couldn’t afford the essentials. 3,743 of these went to children.”
The West Lothian Food Bank is part of the Trussell Trust, a national charity which provides emergency food and support to people in crisis. The Trust distributed almost three million emergency food parcels nationally between April 2022 - March 2023 - the most given out in its history.
Criticising the basic rate of the UC payment, the local food bank manager said: “This is already too low, yet often people needing to use our food bank have up to 25% of that deducted to repay debts, such as advance payments and budgeting loans from the DWP.”
She added: “We’re supporting a new proposal from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Trussell Trust calling for an ‘Essentials Guarantee’ to be built into our social security system, to ensure that the basic rate of Universal Credit is always enough to afford the essentials, so that no one in the UK faces destitution.”
Councillor Sullivan promoted the launch of the West Lothian Food Network in the weeks before the first lockdown of the pandemic.
She said: “The welfare state is supposed to provide a safety net for those who fall into difficulties but that net is riddled with holes after years of austerity.
“Over these past few years we have seen very clearly that financial circumstances can change in the blink of an eye for anyone and people need support at the earliest point before things get any worse.
“West Lothian Food Bank and other local Third sector organisations including the West Lothian Food Network do a tremendous job in helping people who are struggling, in effect they’ve had to become the safety net.”
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