DUNDEE has been my home for almost two decades and I love it.

It is known for a lot of things but the discovery food banks in Scotland gave out enough food to feed the entire population of my city for three days is cause for alarm and a reason for all of us to be unnerved.

The number of three-day supplies distributed to men, women and children topped 145,000 and the reasons underpinning this growing need are even greater cause for concern. We have seen child psychiatrists lose work due to ill health, redundant oil and gas workers struggling to make ends meet and even a former boxing champion unable to get work coming to our foodbanks in Scotland.

John Steinbeck once said that “a sad soul kills quicker than the germ” and there is a great sadness that closes in on the comfortable when circumstances beyond their control destabilise their financial resilience.

Alex competed for Great Britain in the Olympics and Commonwealth Games in the 1980s and was a British champion. Following his sporting success he moved to New Zealand where he was married with children and worked as an HGV driver.

He came home to Scotland after his marriage broke down but he struggled to find work and fell into depression, considering taking his life before he went to the food bank.

The words of Steinbeck resonate with Alex and many others.

For the first time in our history, The Trussell Trust in Scotland has seen low income become the biggest single issue driving people to food banks and this is reflected also in all the other parts of the United Kingdom.

This is unsurprising given recent food price increases and benefit delays attributed to the rollout of Universal Credit that are crippling families and leading to devastating consequences to the dinner tables of men, women and children up and down the country.

William Beveridge, the founder of the welfare state, once said that: “Adventure came not from the half-starved but those who were well fed enough to feel ambition.”

I believe Beveridge wholeheartedly believed in flexing the statutory muscle to ensure that social security enables social mobility. However, there is a growing hopelessness in certain parts of the country where welfare changes intended to ease rather increase the pressure end up making life more difficult.

With both council elections and a now a General Election before us, it is absolutely critical for confirmed as well as prospective candidates to put tackling hunger and food poverty front and centre of the policy agenda.

It is crucial to amplify the voices of people in poverty in the process and ensure the delivery of a clear and coherent strategy on tackling hunger and food poverty that can be implemented both at local and national level.

I get a hard time for inviting senior politicians to food banks — especially those who some deem responsible — but everyone deserves to be confronted with people’s sorrow, especially when they have the power to change it.