GSA Position Paper: Ending the Need for Food Banks – Consultation on a National Plan for Scotland
Submitted to the Scottish Government, January 2022
In response to the Scottish Government’s request for consultation on the practical actions the Scottish Government and other actors can take to end the need for food banks, the Global Solidarity Alliance for Food, Health and Social Justice responded to the following questions put forth by the Scottish Government in October 2022. The consultation period closed at the end of January 2022. The Scottish Government will consider all responses it received to the consultation questions in developing a final version of a national plan which will be published in late 2022.
GSA Position Paper on Ending the Need for Food Banks
Submitted to the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG), July 2022
Evidence shows that food banks (and charitable food provision more broadly) are not an appropriate or long term response to poverty. We need action to halt, and even better reverse, the trend to an ever increasing role for temporary, localised and often charitable provision in response to poverty, given that these forms of support create new chains of conditionality in terms of eligibility. Food banks, localised discretionary welfare support and related provision do not provide their users with security, and are best seen as a response to state failure and the state’s refusal of one of its key obligations – protecting and upholding the social rights of its citizens.