According to a consumer group survey one in five UK households either borrowed money or used savings to cover food costs last month.
This suggests that the equivalent of five million households used credit cards, overdrafts or savings to buy food.
The consumer group Which conducted the survey, collating responses from some 2,000 households, focusing on spending and behaviour.
Of the poll’s respondent families, 43% were headed by people between 30 and 50, and just under half had incomes under £21,000.
Analysis concluded that 55% of those using credit to do weekly shopping planned to cut back on food in the coming months, with almost a third saying they had to borrow from friends or family in order to make ends meet.
The study also discovered that around 25% of people said that they were living comfortably on their incomes and that 36% felt their finances were under pressure.
Alarmingly 31% of those surveyed, mostly women aged between 30 and 49, claimed to have cut back spending on essentials in April.
A spokesman for Which described the findings as “simply shocking” and added:-
“Our tracker shows that many households are stretched to their financial breaking point, with rising food prices one of the top worries for squeezed consumers.
“It’s simply shocking that so many people need to use savings or credit to pay for essentials like food.”
The findings of the Which survey support similar finding from one of Britain’s biggest food crisis charities.
The Trussell Trust recently announced that more than 350,000 people turned to food banks for help last year, almost triple the number who received food aid in the previous year and 100,000 more than anticipated.
The Trust believes the dramatic increase in the use of its food banks was set to continue in the coming months as poorer families struggle financially as a result of the government’s welfare reforms.
One of its spokesmen recently commented: “The sheer volume of people who are turning to food banks because they can’t afford food is a wake-up call to the nation that we cannot ignore the hunger on our doorstep.”
“Politicians across the political spectrum urgently need to recognise the real extent of UK food poverty and create fresh policies that better address its underlying causes. This is more important than ever as the impact of the biggest reforms to the welfare state since it began start to take effect.”
Meanwhile, it has been announced that the Government has no plans to cut back on Britain’s £10 billion foreign aid budget.
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This of course accounts for the obscene profits posted by the big banks recently.Screwing the poor to satisfy the demands of the shareholders.
The people of Britain now need to ask Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh to send us food parcels. Welcome to Modern Britain, a carefully-crafted Third World Country!
“Meanwhile, it has been announced that the Government has no plans to cut back on Britain’s £10 billion foreign aid budget.”
I heard someone from a ‘think-tank’ on a TV news show the other day say that 96% of the public want it cut!
£10 billion foreign aid budget.
Im quite sure its much more than that when all is said and done. How much do we pay in daily to the EU circus? (nobody needs to answer that!!)
What is wrong with the people in this country that they are happy to stand by and watch Our Money hemorrhage out of our coffers when we have genuine poverty and families starving thru no fault of their own?
It could well be down to year after year of leftist pc indoctrination and having no real option at the polls other than the traditional parasites who in reality all read from the same script. British people arent stupid but they are way too tolerant and accepting of assumed guilt.
This new Party needs to be presented as open, progressive FOR OUR OWN NATION and beyond corruption. People need to be educated that just because you want to look after yourselves and your own families first that this doesnt make you selfish or a “racist” or intolerant of other creeds.
This is something I can buy into.
Any comparison to other Nationalist parties can have only a negative effect.
(Party Member) Since the above excellent article things have got even worse due to the Government’s refusal to adopt the principles of ‘National Preference’ advocated by our Party. In a chilling example of Tory Party dogma, George Osborne recently said: “Britain needs to find billions of pounds more in welfare savings if we wish to reduce and then eliminate the ‘deficit’. He has linked the Country’s welfare costs directly to the rising National Debt situation with no regard for the fact that he is adding to the amount of people in need with his policies, particularly mass immigration of people who mostly need an abundance of things we cannot afford to provide. His next Budget will be on 19/3/2014. God help us!