Wednesday, December 04, 2013

Food poverty in UK has reached level of 'public health emergency', warn experts

The Government may be covering up the extent to which austerity and welfare cuts are adding to the problem


Hunger in Britain has reached the level of a “public health emergency” and the Government may be covering up the extent to which austerity and welfare cuts are adding to the problem, leading experts have said.
In a letter to the British Medical Journal, a group of doctors and senior academics from the Medical Research Council and two leading universities said that the effect of Government policies on vulnerable people’s ability to afford food needed to be “urgently” monitored.
A surge in the number of people requiring emergency food aid, a decrease in the amount of calories consumed by British families, and a doubling of the number of malnutrition cases seen at English hospitals represent “all the signs of a public health emergency that could go unrecognised until it is too late to take preventative action,” they write.
Despite mounting evidence for a growing food poverty crisis in the UK, ministers maintain there is “no robust evidence” of a link between sweeping welfare reforms and a rise in the use of food banks. However, publication of research into the phenomenon, commissioned by the Government itself, has been delayed, amid speculation that the findings may prove embarrassing for ministers.
“Because the Government has delayed the publication of research it commissioned into the rise of emergency food aid in the UK, we can only speculate that the cause is related to the rising cost of living and increasingly austere welfare reforms,” the public health experts write.
The authors of the letter, who include Dr David Taylor-Robinson and Professor Margaret Whitehead of Liverpool University’s Department of Public Health, say that malnutrition can have a long-lasting impact on health, particularly among children.
Chris Mould, chief executive of the Trussell Trust, the largest national food bank provider said that one in three of the 350,000 people who required a food bank hand-out this year were children.
He called the BMJ letter a “timely warning” and criticised the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) for keeping its report into the problem “under wraps”.
The report was commissioned by the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in February, and was completed by an academic at Warwick University. However, publication has been stalled.
“We’ve sought to engage with the DWP in order to share our data and share our experience, with a view to exploring what practical action could be taken to ease the problem,” Mr Mould told The Independent. “We’ve had refusals, letters saying they do not want to talk to us. We find that deeply disappointing.”
“We want to see that research. It was commissioned by Government, pulled together by a highly reputable academic and we want to see what it says. We understand that the reason it has not been published is that DWP has queried aspects of the data in it and has been preventing its publication for months. That, we think, is not acceptable.”
In their letter, Dr Taylor-Robinson, Professor Whitehead and colleagues cite figures recently released by the Government which revealed a surge in the number of malnutrition cases diagnosed at English hospitals since the recession – up from 3,161 in 2008/09 to 5,499 in 2012/13. They also draw attention to reports from the Institute for Fiscal Studies which found a decrease in the number of calories purchased by families, as well as “substitution with unhealthier foods, especially in families with young children”.
“Malnutrition in children is particularly worrying because exposures during sensitive periods can have lifelong effects, increasing the risk of cardiovascular diseases and other adult chronic diseases,” they write. “Access to an adequate food supply is the most basic of human needs and rights.”
A government spokesperson said that the Coalition had “help[ed] families with the cost of living [by] increasing the tax-free personal allowance to £10,000, freezing council tax and freezing fuel duty.”
A Defra spokesperson said that the food aid report would be published after a “necessary review and quality assurance process” was complete.
But Luciana Berger, Labour’s shadow minister for public health, said that it was a “national scandal” that people were suffering from malnutrition in the UK.
“This shouldn’t be happening in 21st century Britain,” she said. “With hundreds of thousands having to access emergency food aid, it’s sadly unsurprising that people are both eating less and eating less healthily. David Cameron needs to listen to what the experts are saying and tackle the cost of living crisis driving people into food poverty.”
50,000 people sign petition launched by former food bank user
More than 50,000 people in have signed a petition calling for Parliament to hold a debate on the causes of food poverty in the UK.
The petition was launched on Monday by the writer and former food bank user Jack Monroe.
In her appeal on the Change.org website, Ms Monroe called on supporters to “make politicians confront what is happening.”
“I don’t think this is acceptable in the seventh richest country in the world – and I’d really like to know the reasons why it’s happening so we can stop it…” she said. “We need to stop turning a blind eye.”
The petition has been backed by the Unite union and the national food bank charity the Trussell Trust.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/food-poverty-in-uk-has-reached-level-of-public-health-emergency-warn-experts-8981051.html

NWN: And so it goes on......the UK is being made into a 3rd World country in more ways than one. What next, a return of the workhouses ?

Unless and until nationalists get a grip of issues like this we will go nowhere. With pure numbskulls like Messrs Griffin and Bryan that won't happen. (Waiting for the threats from the Griffinites and Bryan).

Golden Dawn have grasped this issue.

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

Premier Inn guest hurled racist abuse with fire extinguisher hose up his bottom.

http://metro.co.uk/2013/11/12/premier-inn-guest-hurled-racist-abuse-with-fire-extinguisher-hose-up-his-bottom-4184507/

Anonymous said...

Another Con Job EU, Turkey set for visa-free travel deal.


http://www.euronews.com/2013/12/04/eu-turkey-set-for-visa-free-travel-deal/

Anonymous said...

Another Criminal Lord Bhatia 'misappropriated £600,000 of charity funds.
Lord Bhatia, a crossbencher, is accused of funding his own lifestyle with Ethnic Minority Foundation (EMF) money.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25188606

Anonymous said...

Foreign aid bill to rise by £1BILLION because the economic recovery has been better than expected

George Osborne is poised to approve a £1billion increase in foreign aid

Move is in order to meet the Government's controversial spending target

Last night, Tory MP Peter Bone described the increase as 'absurd'


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2517187/Foreign-aid-rise-1BILLION-economic-recovery-better-expected.html#ixzz2mYQa1Uyv

Anonymous said...

Your throwaway comment regarding the return of Work Houses may not be as far off the mark as you assume!

We have already seen the abolition of Housing Benefit for the Under 25s and as these are reputedly able to live on a little over £50 a week then the time will come when our caring government will "offer" these people some form of "sheltered housing" and combine this "offer" with "education" and "work".

Do not kid yourself that such a plan is not already on somebodies drawing board or that when it IS rolled out it will be eventually extended to other older groups!

To most people the content of Oliver Twist is a warning of mans inhumanity to man,to our ruling elite it is a manifesto,a guide book on how to sweat as much profit out of people as possible.

The Under 25's have already been demonized which means it can only be matter of time before they are dragooned into some form of unpaid state labour scheme.

And don't kid yourself they wouldn't do such a thing,this bunch of cunts have already closed down REMPLOY! I would never have believed such an act of deliberate cruelty was possible but that didn't stop them doing it!

If they will happily close down REMPLOY,and they have,then this bunch of cunts is capable of fucking anybody!

I sincerely believe that the only argument that will make any impression upon the Shitehawks running Britain is 12" long and made of Sheffield Steel!

NWN Admin said...

A good post Anon;

Only today they are arranging to up the retirement age now to 68 !!!!

They will keep 'upping' that so we work till we drop, BUT, continue paying taxes.

And just what are the Trade Unions doing ?

Anonymous said...

Evidence is growing that the Irish people, who have literally been fighting for their freedom from Jewish power since the Jews sent their pointman Oliver Cromwell in to butcher them and bring them democracy in a campaign which would later become the template for Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria many hundreds of years later, are now fighting back.

http://endzog.wordpress.com/2013/12/05/ireland-irish-resistance-to-jewish-occupation-growing/

Anonymous said...

And just what are the Trade Unions doing ?

Are you having a laugh?? They are actively recruiting as many poles and other aliens as members as they can so they can pay the labour party and themselves big fat wages and pensions, whilst nothing is said or done when our job's are given to others and not a peep when our jobs and factories are outsourced.
"SMASH THE UNIONS"

Anonymous said...

My family were all devoted supporters of the Labour Party,the one we had before they sold out to the bosses by supporting mass immigration and thus the constant flow of cheap labour.

Can anyone imagine the reaction of the Labour leadership of pre-war Britain if you had stood up at the Party conference and said "Comrades, why don't we flood Britain with the dregs of the world and help the bosses to make more money by forcing down the wages of our own people"?

Well no one has done that yet but they have followed the policy nonetheless and condemned the British Working Class to eternal poverty and despair.I would rather watch my family die from cancer of the jaw than vote Labour ever again!

Anonymous said...

Cameron bound in servitude to Israel: Analyst.


http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/12/05/338392/cameron-bound-in-servitude-to-israel/

Anonymous said...

British chancellor announces fresh austerity measures.


http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/12/05/338396/fresh-austerity-lies-ahead-uk-chancellor/

Anonymous said...

Do you know what your children are doing on Facebook? Parents warned after three men are convicted of grooming girls as young as 13 for sex
Shakil Munir, Sakib Ahmed and Ateeq Latif convicted of sex offences
Taxi driver Munir, 32, sent explicit messages to one victim on Facebook
One girl was picked up in her pyjamas and taken to lay-by for sex

Ahmed, 19, met girl at under-age disco and said 'pretend you're 16'
Pal Latif helped Ahmed facilitate sex with young victim
Mother warns children and says social networks 'a free for all'


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2518904/3-men-convicted-grooming-girls-Facebook-sex.html#ixzz2mh2BrSfK

Anonymous said...

Before everyone gets the bunting out to celebrate being allowed to earn almost £200 a week before getting hit for Income Tax I think they might like to take a look at that other bane of the low paid,National Insurance,for that still kicks in at just over £100 a week!

The individual sources of government revenue are quite interesting as Income Tax and NI account for well over a QUARTER OF A TRILLION POUNDS but Corporation Tax is less than £40 BILLION?

The government admit that the under collection of Corporation Tax,mainly from firms like Thames Water that paid NOTHING on profits of OVER HALF A BILLION POUNDS in the last year alone,equal over £120 BILLION.

So IF these firms paid what they reasonably should rather than what various tax dodges allow then not only would we have NO DEFICIT at all but we could theoretically abolish INCOME TAX! At the very least we could do this for the poorest and throw in NI for them as well!

But this will never happen,not because it couldn't but because our government is OWNED entirely by the Banks.And it is the same people who sit on the Board of Directors for the banks who sit on the ones for the likes of Thames Water,and these people FUND the political parties AND hand EX-MP's seats on the Board after they retire!

Another way to bribe people AFTER the event and get away with it is to pay them vast amounts for their "memoirs" ,those 3" thick doorstops that nobody ever reads but which ALWAYS command more than the latest Harry Potter does in advances!

And the other favourite is to pay them £100,000 to make a 40 minute speech,usually the same speech,over and over again!

Tony Blair gets more from HIS speeches than Charles Dickens did for his own public readings of his own works! And since when did people actually FIGHT to get into a venue to hear Tony Blair?

Anonymous said...

Dozens of asylum seekers are being put up in a luxury hotel for NINE WEEKS - costing the taxpayer £300,000
Amblehurst Hotel, in Sale, Manchester, has rooms for up to £125 a night
Group of 104 asylum seekers, from 31 families, are staying at the hotel

Home Office spokesman said accommodation provided at agreed rates

Hotel has 50 rooms and has hosted parties for Manchester United players


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2519280/Dozens-asylum-seekers-luxury-hotel-NINE-WEEKS--costing-taxpayer-300-000.html#ixzz2mjMAc5lG

Anonymous said...

Somali asylum-seeker used fake ID for £91,000 benefit fraud – but WON'T be jailed or deported because her seven-year-old daughter was born here
Ayan Ismail has two convictions for identity fraud in 2004 and 2009

She was jailed for the second offence after obtaining false NI number
Upon her release she continued to claim thousands in benefits
Now, she has been found guilty seven year's worth of benefit fraud

She can't be deported because her child's custody case is pending
Ismail told she won't pay back money after getting suspended sentenced

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2519386/Somali-asylum-seeker-used-fake-ID-91-000-benefit-fraud-WONT-jailed-deported-seven-year-old-daughter-born-here.html#ixzz2mjR4aSws

Anonymous said...

Somali asylum-seeker used fake ID for £91,000 benefit fraud – but WON'T be jailed or deported because her seven-year-old daughter was born here
Ayan Ismail has two convictions for identity fraud in 2004 and 2009

She was jailed for the second offence after obtaining false NI number
Upon her release she continued to claim thousands in benefits
Now, she has been found guilty seven year's worth of benefit fraud

She can't be deported because her child's custody case is pending
Ismail told she won't pay back money after getting suspended sentenced

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2519386/Somali-asylum-seeker-used-fake-ID-91-000-benefit-fraud-WONT-jailed-deported-seven-year-old-daughter-born-here.html#ixzz2mjR4aSws

Anonymous said...

Britain's poor 'will die before they retire' if pension reforms aren't matched by health improvements.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/britains-poor-will-die-before-they-retire-if-pension-reforms-arent-matched-by-health-improvements-8989446.html

Anonymous said...

Putty head Bryan wants to stick to stacking shelves.

Anonymous said...

Can't what to see what Bryan's lot call themselves after the EGM today.

Anonymous said...

The International Banking Cartel.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OU9AGUv4lk