Pride and Prejudice, stop's people in need from accessing food bank vouchers.

 

Northumberland may look beautiful when shown on tv, the remoteness, the friendliness of people from its townships and villages and its fabulous coastline are a great draw for tourists..  Unfortunately that face of the County hides huge problems that poorly managed national inflation is worsening, poverty and deprivation.

Nationally we know that poverty and deprivation has been pretty constant right over the decade of Conservative austerity with the Cameron Government driving down human rights and workers rights a year on from taking office in 2010, on the back of their media programme based on people lording it up on benefits and suspected disability living allowance claimants jigging, boozing and spending in Spain which led to Ian Duncan Smith MP setting up the damaging for most Universal Credit and its massively difficult for lay people to understand, the Personal Independence Payment.

The erosion of benefits and human rights to appease the ultra right wing element  of the Tories and its loudmouth brexiteers has led us to the ruinous place the nations in with the lowest growth in GDP since the Napoleonic Wars so let's look at poverty and deprivation as it affects Northumberland?

Nationally, in 2019/20:     11.7 million people were in relatively low income Before Housing Costs (18% of the population), at a similar level to the year before.

14.5 million were in relatively low income After Housing Costs (22%of the UK population), also at a similar level to the year before.

In 2021-22 we expect to receive data based on the County of Northumberland to show that 26% of adults live in poverty and 14% of those are living in extreme poverty.

Looking specifically at children's data:

3.2 million children were in relatively low income Before Housing Costs (23% of children), an increase from the year before.

4.3 million were in relatively low income After Housing Costs (31%), about the same as the year before with the wonderful small township of Newbiggin by the sea home to the highest number of children living in poverty and deprivation in Northumberland.

But these figures have changed considerably since the collation of the above figures in 2020 and it will be more than interesting when they are released, as the proposed 2022-23 Council budgets don't include help for either Adults or Children as they are designed to slash costs further to allow additional borrowing repayments to be made to ensure the Tories pet projects are delivered.

Ian Duncan Smith, (IDS) when talking about universal credit, (something he's changed his mind about since) always included families and how the family unit would be able to assist. 

In Northumberland that is rarely the case as the largest pension schemes to top up the state pensions are the mineworkers pension scheme, the local government superannuation scheme and NHS pension schemes, all lower graded schemes based once on final salary but now on wages or average working lifetime earnings. 

Grandparents of 'units' who contributed to the mineworkers schemes pre 1988 have a guaranteed minimum pension, the hated acronym GMP of only £13 per week and when that is coupled with the lower rates of state pension they receive, the average income of a colliery widow is £151 per week barely enough to cover Housing Costs and completely unable to assist IDS's 'units'.

During April 2021 local MP Anne Marie Trevelyan was asked by the trustees of the Mineworkers scheme to look at a greater share of the invested profits Government makes from the scheme being returned to its members, due to the annual lowering of claimants as time rolls on. She flatly refused keeping thousands across the North-east region in the Tories' poverty trap. 

But pride and the prejudice of using foodbanks stalls many from seeking the vouchers they need to prove they are living in poverty.

Although the Government would have you believe you can just rock up and get a bag full of food that isn't the case. Food bank use is for emergencies only and you have to seek help to get the three vouchers which will allow your family to receive nine days worth of food. After that your 'back on your jack' as the miners used to say.

We have provided a link to help families in need but as a reader of our articles you must have access to the Internet. Those in need don't so please share the link information with those you know may need it and begin to wreck the stigma in society that it's wrong to seek help and remember, on average your only two pay days from needing that help yourself.

So our second request is that: always remember that the presentation of the poor sacking funds from your pocket are lies produced by Tories to pitch their plans to control the people and until the lies of a Prime Minister were exposed, people found those lies so easy to swallow.

https://www.goodto.com/family/money-news/food-banks-near-me-115479