An all-party group of MPs and peers has called on the government to publish a long-delayed official report into the growth of food banks in the UK stating it will kick start a proper debate on the causes of food poverty in the UK.
{jcomments on}The review, which examined the scale and causes of the explosion in emergency food aid in recent years, was delivered to the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in June, but has since remained under wraps.
Labour MP Frank Field, chair of the newly-formed all-party group (APPG) on hunger and food poverty, wrote to the environment secretary Owen Paterson on Thursday demanding that he publish the report "as a matter of urgency. He states that there is speculation that the report has been “suppressed” by the DWP due to the effects of welfare reform on food bank use.
Field told the Guardian the group was set up because of fears that there was too little debate about the growth of food poverty in the UK:
"I was really concerned that we were just neglecting the issues, and allowing food banks to become a part of the welfare state, with us asleep."
