IN my constituency of Aberdeenshire North and Moray East, communities are facing temperatures of up to -6 this week, with yellow warnings for snow and ice.

There will be many households having to make the impossible choice between heating their homes or eating – unable to provide warm, nutritious meals as a result.

Some of them will go without so their children can eat and stay warm, others will access one of the many local food banks that have sprung up across the country providing an essential service and support to those in need.

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Unemployment, a sudden reduction in benefits or an unexpected bill when household budgets are already stretched thin are some of the reasons that someone may need help from their local food bank.

Many of my constituents will be turning to food banks such as the Aberdeenshire North food bank, based in Peterhead and Fraserburgh, which distributed 10,000 food parcels last year as part of the Trussell Trust network.

This food bank, like so many others, is run by an incredible team of volunteers who give not just their time and effort to help people but provide a powerful sense of community and support to those marginalised and isolated by poverty and food insecurity.

The Aberdeenshire North Foodbank, in partnership with the charity Stella’s Voice, also operates the Peterhead Community Market Garden – a community food growing space which is open for all to enjoy. It aims to provide healthy produce, build confidence and provide valuable training opportunities.

It is incredible to see the grassroots enthusiasm for the impact that this project is having and I hope to see it go from strength to strength in the coming years.

Before 2010 food banks were few and far between. Fourteen years later they are very much a part of our society, with the Trussell Trust distributing 3.12 million emergency food parcels in 2023/24, representing a shocking 94% increase from just five years earlier, with 1.1 million of these parcels distributed for children.

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These figures are appalling and should be raising alarm bells in the corridors of Westminster. This is why I arranged my “eliminating the use of food banks” debate this week, to highlight how policymakers can bring about a reduction in the need for foodbanks, through a progressive, socially just and joined-up approach to policy making.

At Holyrood, the Scottish Government has already introduced a raft of policies which have contributed to a reduction in food poverty such as free school meals and the Scottish Child Payment, described as a “game changer” by leading charities.

The Best Start Grant package, for example, which helps parents and carers on low incomes with the costs of having a child, can help significantly by providing households with some financial breathing space and with it, the ability to dedicate more money to buying healthy food.

I believe Holyrood is also considering how a social tariff for the most vulnerable (to pay less on energy bills) could be introduced, which would be transformative in terms of tackling poverty and would help stop people having to make the invidious choice between heating and eating.

Meanwhile, the Trussell Trust and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation continue to advocate for an “essentials guarantee” to ensure that social security payments should never fall below the amount needed to afford essentials such as food and household bills. They estimate this to cost around £120 per week.

With the basic rate of Universal Credit at £91 per week, there is currently a gap of £29 there – a discrepancy the Chancellor should be looking to deal with ahead of her next Budget.

A more robust social safety net such as implementing a statutory living wage and dismantling catastrophic austerity measures brought in by the Tories should be another focus for this new Labour Government.

After all, back in 2019, the UN’s special rapporteur for extreme poverty, Philip Alston, described austerity as causing “the systematic immiseration” of the British population and creating “19th-century workhouse” conditions.

If Labour’s pledge to bring “change” means anything, surely this is a good place to start as things have only got worse since Mr Alston made his devastating assessment.

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The upcoming review into Universal Credit is another golden opportunity to make good on Labour’s manifesto commitments.

Taking a leaf out of the Scottish Government’s book and rolling out free school meals and access to food during school breaks would be a step in the right direction as well as empowering local communities with “dignified” food aid models moving beyond the traditional charity style approach.

Affordable food clubs, social supermarkets and community kitchens would also address isolation and bolster community strength.

Given the staggering levels of hardship and hunger facing so many across the UK, something has got to give. Starmer can talk about growth all he likes, but genuine and sustainable growth comes in large part from lifting everyone up and helping people to reach their full potential.

How exactly can we expect children to flourish when families are skipping meals and living in destitution, unable to meet the costs of meeting life’s basic needs, and risking further embedding cross-generational poverty and diminishing people’s life chances?

Our ultimate goal should be a society where food banks are obsolete, replaced by robust social and economic structures that guarantee access to nutritious and affordable food.

I intend to make sure the UK Government is listening to what is being done in Scotland, not least because “change” needs to be something far more tangible than just a vacuous election slogan for the Labour Party.