Thu 1 Nov 2018, 06:21 AM | Posted by editor
Letter from Mark Langabeer, Newton Abbot CLP, personal capacity.
Channel 4’s Dispatches programme, entitled, Born on the Breadline revealed a sharp increase in the number of parents having to turn to ‘baby banks’ because they can’t afford the basics. Items such as clothes, nappies, cots and feeding bottles are supplied to tens of thousands of parents across the UK.
The programme reported that around 1 in every 100 families have turned to baby banks in England. In Scotland, one in four children are growing up in poverty. Referrals to baby banks have increased by 500% in the last 5 years and around one in five referrals are from working families.
Dispatches discovered that many referrals included midwives, health visitors and social workers. The main reasons for the rise in baby bank usage has been benefit freezes, Universal Credit and the sanctions regime imposed by this Tory Government.
Debt and family illness are also important factors in the rise of baby banks. Dispatches interviewed a guy who is a self-employed painter and decorator. He was involved in a road traffic accident and his ability to apply his trade has been restricted. With a baby on the way, he and his partner turned to a baby bank for help.
A volunteer pointed out that simply replacing a washing machine can lead families into a downward spiral of debt. She also pointed out that baby banks are no more than a sticking plaster for a welfare system that’s falling to give many new-borns the basics for civilized existence. This in a nation than claims to be the 6th richest in the world.
Labour must end this scandal, it must link benefits to inflation or average earnings (which ever is the greater). It must end sanctions that drive children into poverty and ensures that no one suffers financial loss as a result of universal credit.
