Can next Scottish Parliament end hunger in Scotland? - Laura van der Hoeven
The Edinburgh Food Project is an anti-poverty charity and the largest provider of foodbanks in Edinburgh. Last year we handed out over 18,000 emergency food parcels to people facing hunger and hardship – an extraordinary total in a city as prosperous as Edinburgh.
In the run up to the election we have been working with our “Experts by Experience” panel – a group of people with personal experience of relying on foodbanks - to host hustings events and challenge candidates standing for the Scottish Parliament about what they would do to ensure that everyone can afford to eat, and end the need for foodbanks in Scotland.
In 2023 the Scottish Government published a strategy to do just that by investing in “cash first” approaches to ensure everyone has enough money to afford food. But there is a big gap between these ambitions and what has been implemented so far.
Fuel and food prices are soaring again and experts are predicting another cost of living crisis – it feels like momentum has been lost.
Perhaps surprisingly, our recent hustings revealed that there is consensus among most political parties that we need to tackle poverty and move beyond the widespread need for foodbanks.
There is recognition across the political spectrum that policies like benefit sanctions and the five-week wait for universal credit drive people to foodbanks.
But the parties have different viewson whether the Scottish Parliament under their control would take responsibility for finding (and funding) solutions or whether responsibility must lie with Westminster, with councils or with individuals themselves.
Political debate is so often reduced to soundbites and social media memes. It has been powerful to see democratic debate at play face to face in real communities.
At one of our events an asylum seeker who uses our foodbank told his story of injustice, barred from working and banned from claiming benefits, he was relying on charity to survive. For the candidates, even though they are advocating a range of policies on immigration, there was no hiding from the humanity of that one man’s experience.
Poverty of the depth and scale witnessed in our foodbanks is not inevitable but is the result of political choices. Far too many people are falling through the cracks.
As we head towards this election, we challenge all political parties to recognise the human face of poverty in Scotland and to commit to making better political choices that will end hunger and hardship for good.
Laura van der Hoeven, Chief Executive of the Edinburgh Food Project