Sit down with a Politician

“You know, if you have five houses and you derive income from rent then it doesn’t affect you. But if you’re working on the breadline then you’re hit.”

I have been putting off writing this post for a few months now as I have been unsure how best to tackle it. I still don’t think I quite have the answer but with the cost of living set to increase further over the coming months and more people than ever finding themselves experiencing food insecurity for the first time, I think now is a good time to try. Back in May I spoke to three political representatives who support Flintshire and the surrounding area to discuss their perspectives on the issue of food insecurity in North Wales. I spoke with Llyr Gruffydd MS, Plaid Cymru, Mark Isherwood MS, Welsh Conservatives and Cllr Andrew Parkhurst, Welsh Liberal Democrats, two representatives from Welsh Labour were contacted but we received no communication back. I spoke with them all at length regarding the sufficiency of current support provided by Parliament, and ways in which they feel the Welsh Government could improve upon that support. We discussed what initiatives they are hoping to bring to the table and reflected upon how their perspective on the issue may differ from mine or yours. Now before we delve into the details I thought it would be good to provide a short introduction for each person. 

Llyr Gruffydd MS: “I am a Plaid Cymru member of the Senedd. I represent the North Wales region, which is one of four regional members covering, more or less the whole of North Wales, from Wrexham right across to Anglesey. I’ve been an elected member since 2011, so I’m one year into my third term as a Senedd Member. And I speak for Plaid Cymru on finance and local government. But I also chair the committee on climate change, environment and infrastructure.”

Cllr Andrew Parkhurst: “My name’s Andrew Parkhurst. I’m the chair of Flintshire Liberal Democrats and have been for the past 4 years. I stood in the general election in 2019 and also in the Senedd election last year, when I was the Welsh party’s economy spokesperson. In May, I stood for the county council elections for my local ward in Cilcain and was elected. So, probably for the purpose of this discussion, I’ll be thinking about Flintshire as a whole as opposed to just my own ward.” 

“Food banks, if they are to exist, should be for the very rare instance where people fall through the cracks. It shouldn’t be something which people have to rely on regularly, it shouldn’t be something which is increasing in usage.” 

Mark Isherwood MS:  “I’m a member of the Senedd, I’ve been a member for 19 years. My brief at the moment is Shadow Minister for Social Justice. So it’s very much working in this area. I also chair what’s called the Public Account and Public Administration Committee. So our role isn’t to question government policy, but rather to question and scrutinise Welsh government and public bodies in Wales over how effectively and efficiently they’ve used public resources, and administered public resources to achieve the stated policies and outcomes. I also voluntarily chair seven cross party groups. So I chair - relevant to this piece of work - a cross party group on fuel poverty and energy efficiency.” 

My main takeaway from all three interviews is that everybody is aware of the issue to some extent, everybody feels enough is not currently being done in different capacities, and they all have interesting ways by which they feel the situation could be improved. If I’m honest, I wasn’t expecting the conversations to be as open as they were, and run for as long as they did, what were only supposed to be 30 minute interviews all ran for well over an hour. But what did we actually talk about? Now I’m not going to take you through each and every tiny question asked, mainly because this blog post would then be a short novel, so I’ve chosen some of the most enlightening moments from the interviews, for me at least, to discuss. 

Q: To what extent are you aware of food poverty and insecurity being an issue in North Wales?

There were two main questions I was curious to know the answer to as it can often feel like people in politics are out of touch, we see things everyday that seem like they could be easily fixed but nothing seems to be done from those with the power to do so. Therefore, the first question was to find out how aware they were of the issues everyday people face in the community, and the second was did they really believe enough was being done to support people. I interviewed Llyr Gruffydd first so it seems only fair we start with him. In this interview Llyr describes food insecurity as the “tip of a much bigger iceberg” and we discussed how very often those experiencing food insecurity also suffer with addictions, poor mental health, poor physical health, and in child poverty studies have shown malnourished children under perform in school, struggling with their education which is going to impact them in later life. Llyr then goes on to say that for him the issue of food insecurity in North Wales has “always been there” but that there was an expectation surrounding the “kind of people who find themselves in that situation.” Whereas now, the issue is becoming more widespread as the “working poor…people who are in jobs - who are low paid…are struggling to afford the basics.”

“The amount of food that is wasted just tells its own story. And not enough is being done by governments, in the plural, to address that.”

The Trussell Trust are yet to release their mid-year stats on usage of foodbanks, but even in the last financial year the numbers had increased by 14%, so we can only imagine that the cost of living crisis is going to have pushed these numbers even higher. When posing the same question to Mark Isherwood, he also said for him the issue has “always been there” and recalled how he was present when the first foodbank in Flintshire was opened. He then went on to say “Wales, in general, has, sadly, the highest poverty levels in the UK - and the highest child poverty levels in the UK”. So far, the presence of the issue is clear, and they’re both right, Wales does have some of the highest poverty levels with more people now than ever struggling. But the question stands, yes these are strong facts backed by statistics but to what extent do they reflect the issue on the ground?

Andrew Parkhurst, chose to share a personal acnedote with me about a young mother he met in his constituency and I’m going to share it with you; 

“I had a young mother, very recently, come to me indirectly through a third party contact, with two young children. She had just run out of money, had no food. Literally no food for her children. She lived in a rural area, access to food banks were difficult, she’d run out of her food vouchers. She’d contacted the council. The council, you know, were reacting but they can’t always react immediately. I had to go to the supermarket and buy her some food. And I took some old clothes from my children - so her children could have a pair of shoes. And I found, when I went round, that her electricity had been cut off. And she was relying on a car battery for her electricity supply with bare wires and a toddler, you know, fooling around, which could have killed the toddler. So, you know, this was very much a life and death situation. It’s not something which is hypothetical, it’s a real tragedy for individual people.” 

I’ll be honest, at first, I was partly surprised he had taken it upon himself to go and help this young mother. Which in hindsight, seems silly because I know many people who wouldn’t hesitate to help, so why wouldn’t he? I think often we don’t expect authoritative individuals to go above and beyond to support people. You’re told to take issues to your local councillor and you just imagine it gets passed on in the next meeting but you never expect that they will try and help themselves, or at least I don’t. The sad truth of this however, is that this kind of support is unsustainable. While I personally believe everyone in a community is responsible for one another, that doesn’t mean that larger organisations should rely on us to fill in the gaps when their support is unavailable. Unfortunately we have reached a point where foodbanks are overstretched and more and more people are relying on them regularly and the food just isn't there. Andrew Parkhurst sums up perfectly, in my opinion, what foodbanks use within society should be, “Food banks, if they are to exist, should be for the very rare instance where people fall through the cracks. It shouldn’t be something which people have to rely on regularly, it shouldn’t be something which is increasing in usage. And something needs to be done about it because people’s lives are being directly impacted.” 

Q: Do you believe the Welsh Government is current doing enough to support those experiencing food poverty/insecurity?

I won’t lie, my main drive behind asking this question is I personally think more can be done. I thought about it back in May/June when I was conducting these interviews and I definitely think so now, but what do our local representatives think? When speaking to Llyr Gruffydd, he was very open in sharing his opinion with me. “No, in a word,” he said, “Partly because it doesn’t have the powers that it needs to make a real difference. But also it’s frustrating because I think there’s a lack of ambition as well from the Welsh government in terms of what it could try and do.” He goes on to share his frustrations with the free school meals policy currently being introduced across Wales, “Our long term policy in Plaid Cymru of providing free school meals is something that we’ve been proposing for many years, and for many years Labour voted against it. Post election in 2021, the arithmetic meant that they didn’t have a majority, so we used our leverage through the corporation agreement between Plaid Cymru and the Welsh government to force them, effectively, to introduce free school meals.” I personally found this particularly shocking that it took so long and so much opposition from the party that is supposed to support lower income households and actually when speaking with the community groups we were working with, found that many people had assumed the policy had been Labours. Now of course this is just one perspective. Had I had the opportunity to speak with Labour representatives I could have asked them about the policy, but unfortunately they did not respond to our emails.

“You know, strategy after strategy from the Welsh government has failed in terms of food poverty. And, they’ve set targets, which they haven’t met, so they’ve scrapped targets.”

Llyr goes on to discuss how the powers of the Welsh government are hindering change in Wales. “I mean the other area that we’re encouraging the Welsh government to be a bit more demanding around towards the UK government is the devolution of benefits and welfare.” He adds, “Scotland has powers to do that. And for some reason, the Welsh government is refusing to ask for those powers. And in doing so, I interpret that as them saying they would rather let the Tories do what they’re doing rather than do it themselves.” He uses the example of recent cuts to Universal Credit as a  way of showing something the Welsh government has no control over, “it's taking millions and millions out of the Welsh economy. And millions and millions out of people's pockets. At a time when they need it more.” He continues, “And then what we have in its place - sorry I’m on a rant to you now -  But what we have in its place, then, of course, are cuts to fuel duty, which has gone unnoticed, really, hasn’t it? It was in the news today that they’re hitting the highest prices ever again this week. And people are asking ‘well, what happened to that five pence cut?’ It’s made absolutely no difference. And they introduce policies like the national insurance increase in terms of the cost of that, which is hitting those who are in work and struggling.” He ultimately rounds off his point by saying, “You know, if you have five houses and you derive income from rent then it doesn’t affect you. But if you’re working on the breadline then you’re hit.” I could really sense how frustrated he was. For those of you who don’t know, Plaid Cymru has been campaigning for Welsh independence for quite a few years now, and when you hear it all laid out like that it's not too hard to see why. It’s clear Llyr feels if we had more control here in Wales, we could do more to support those in need, and actually you’ll see later on, in a way Mark Isherwood also agrees. 

I went on to ask him whether he feels solving the issue of food insecurity should be a priority to the government, “I think it has to be because as I said earlier it’s one of the fundamental things that you need in life. And if the government tells us, as they very often do, that their priority is to keep their people safe and well, food is probably the single biggest - you know, food and water, and energy, are what we need to survive. So it has to be top of the list.” I think it's interesting the way he phrased this saying ‘it has to be’, because yes the answer is obvious, it should be a priority and we are often told it is, so then why do we still have such high rates of poverty?

“..it feels as if we’re just going around in circles and we need something a bit more fundamental to break that cycle.”

He went on to talk about food policies and how right now food poverty is not the priority when it comes to those policies. He talked about all food policies needing review in order to see real change, as food poverty is not just lack of food, but how our production processes are having a huge impact. He said, “Food waste is a huge issue. I mean it’s criminal, really. The amount of food that is wasted just tells its own story. And not enough is being done by governments, in the plural, to address that.” The idea of rewriting policies and seeing them as working together to improve one this as opposed to separate issues is something Plaid have been pushing for for years, particularly within food policies, as Llyr shares with me that there are food policies for everything from schools to tourism but they never come together to view food as one issue/need to an individual. He says he finds it quite frustrating that the government is reluctant to review policy right now, “there was a tsunami of bureaucracy that had to be dealt with as a result of Brexit in terms of rewriting many policies and recreating structures that had disappeared. Covid, of course, has had a huge impact as well, in terms of people moving to focus on other things.” he feels, “these are opportunities - instead of just going back to the way we used to do things - to reset. And reassess what we’re doing against maybe new values or refocused values as a result of some of these things.” And he believes that we are in that opportunity right now, “take a step back, politically and think ‘okay, so, what are we trying to achieve here’, and, you know, poverty is always a driver, isn’t it, really. You know, strategy after strategy from the Welsh government has failed in terms of food poverty. And, they’ve set targets, which they haven’t met, so they’ve scrapped targets. And it feels as if we’re just going around in circles and we need something a bit more fundamental to break that cycle.” As he mentioned earlier he feels there is a “lack of ambition” from the Welsh government, when it comes to providing support and solving issues, and honestly at this point I agree with him.  

“..there needs to be more imagination. Because people are struggling now, and we can’t wait for things to happen next year.”

 Andrew Parkhurst has a similar opinion, he feels that Wales needs more investment in itself and describes it as needing “a more entrepreneurial approach”. When sharing with me how he feels about what the Welsh government is currently doing he says, “Well the answer, I think, is not enough.” He goes on to explain further by saying, “I think there’s two strands to this. One is the short-term measures to support people and provide immediate relief, particularly as we move into, the next winter and 6 months time. But there’s also the longer term and the sticking plaster approach is not adequate. Because families and individuals need resilience, economic resilience to be able to withstand these sudden shocks because you can’t always foresee what’s going to happen and unless people earn enough money, or have enough savings, they can’t withstand these unforeseen shocks.” Which ultimately is what's happening now, we’ve already established many people are now finding themselves struggling more than ever before as an accumulation of events over the last few years have caused prices to skyrocket and Andrew explains how this is particularly a problem within Wales. “Wales has underperformed economically, when you look at the stats by the Office of National Statistics. The last quarterly figures saw the Welsh economy declining in terms of GDP, Gross Domestic Product, whereas the rest of the UK increased. In 2020, because of the pandemic, Wales suffered to a greater extent in terms of economic performance than the rest of the UK. And all of these factors mean that people are on lower wages. You know, that is the bottom line of it.”

“And I was thinking about, when people have a bus pass, there is no shame or stigma, apart from admitting that one’s over 60.”

One way in which Andrew suggests the Welsh government could provide long-term support to people is through private investment, supporting businesses, and he says, “without that investment, we won’t see the growth in wages, which would then help people to withstand these shocks.” He takes a look at how funnelling money into supporting local businesses to directly employ members of the community is a way of providing support, he says, “They could look at planning and applications, so that shops which aren’t being used could repurpose their use more quickly. They could look at creating a job creation premium so that when firms take on jobs, the cost of recruitment and training is covered by grants etc. There are immediate things which the government could do which would then have a knock-on effect to support business and that would support people’s wages and help them through these troubling times.” I agree with him that there are multiple ways the government can support people that may actually have some longevity and in the same way that Andrew says, “there's a lack of imagination” it's very similar to the point Llyr Gruffydd made about the government needing to be more ‘ambitious’. So why does there still seem to be strong support for the idea that providing people with foodbank parcels and phone calls with citizens advice to discuss budgeting is going to fix everything. Maybe one day it did. We were recently invited to a cost of living summit, where we met a lady who works in the local housing department. She was very quick to share that with the costs of everything increasing people simply don’t have the money, no matter how well they are budgeting. For me, it's encouraging to know that Llyr and Andrew feel the same way, and have some awareness that things are currently not working. 

“..there needs to be more happening.”

I put Andrew in contact with one of our project partners, Well-fed, as he was keen to discuss how he could support them with the work they do teaching people how to cook with fresh food. He also shared with me ideas he has to improve support, “I’ve been thinking about what is a kind of suitable route, because it is a difficult one to reach people in a way that does not patronise them. And I was thinking about, when people have a bus pass, there is no shame or stigma, apart from admitting that one’s over 60. You show your bus pass and get free transport. And no one bats an eyelid. To go into a food bank and ask for free food is humiliating. So what is the way round that? And I think one way is through the use of community shops.” Of course I asked him to explain further, “So all shops which participate in community schemes, if individuals have some means of identification, something gets knocked off at the till. It’s something which is invisible to other people which is not humiliating. Essentials are at cost price, everyone gains, the shop gains, the people gain. The cost in terms of doing it is probably relatively modest, certainly compared to what’s been spent in recent years in the government support.” For me something like this makes incredible sense. Many of the people I have spoken to over the last 8 months all talk about stigmas of using foodbanks and the lack of nutritious food on offer. But parents have also talked about the pressures of feeding your kids well and how there's expectations of what you’re ‘supposed’ to feed them but nobody cares that healthy food is actually quite expensive. So potentially something like what Andrew is suggesting would remove those stigmas. And his final point regarding the cost stuck out to me. Often when new initiatives get suggested there seems to be an automatic response of ‘no that will cost too much’ but actually the money could be there, I personally just think it could be used better and as Andrew says, “that might not be the answer but there needs to be more imagination. Because people are struggling now, and we can’t wait for things to happen next year. They have to happen now. And there needs to be more happening.” 

As you can see so far there is already a clear thread of similar  things being said by different parties, granted Andrew and Llyr have different focus’ and suggestions but it all ultimately comes back to the idea that clearly the support that has been there for the last 10, 20 years, is not working or is not sufficient to actually solve the issue. It's just placating it for a short while before needing to step in again. Let's take a look at our final representative, Mark Isherwood. Now being honest, I went into this interview with a few preconceptions in my mind as I’m not the biggest fan of the conservative party, I actually don’t think many people are at the moment. Even though the Welsh Conservatives are markedly different from those currently down in London, there is a strong divide in North Wales, especially in my local town, between the left and the right. But despite this, I was pleasantly surprised by the conversation I had with Mark. In response to my questions he was mostly looking through the perspective of the disabled community as he is a member of many cross party groups that aim to represent those voices, but I could tell just like Llyr and Andrew, this is an issue he clearly cares about. Let's see what he had to say. 

“But it’s far from universal. So I’d like to see what they’ve been calling for for many years bear fruit.”

Mark focused initially on analysing the finances and resources of the Welsh government when looking at whether they are currently doing enough. Later he shared with me some policies that many cross-party groups have been calling for, for years, that just haven’t come to fruition. He starts, “Clearly the Welsh government is, like any government, limited by the money it has in its coffers.” Mark goes on to explain further, “When the UK government announced its first tranche of support, Welsh government received £180 million. And fully committed that to programmes which largely paralleled the programmes being developed in the UK as well as pump priming the discretionary support funding through local authorities. When the UK government announced a little bit extra, the Welsh government got 25 million more. But they stated that because they’d already doubled the amount of money going into the - I think it’s the Winter Fuel Support Scheme - it was already gone.” He admitted that this surprised him, they had “justifiably boasted” about putting more money in pro rata than the UK government, they were now saying they wouldn’t use the extra funding as they had “already committed it” and rounding off his point he shared that he “would like to see that 25 million going into support.” And when you think about it, that is a lot of money that could be used to support those experiencing food poverty right now. Going back to Andrew's suggestion earlier, think about how much food could be subsidised with £25 million. I’d just like to add here that something I took away from all three interviews is actually as a regular citizen how little I know about what the government actually does in terms of the schemes and initiatives it funds.

“..to genuinely empower and enable communities to be part of the solution to problems they encounter, longer term.”

A key initiative Mark has been supporting for many years is the devolution of benefits. He explains, “there’s been a call for many years that when you go to the job centre in Wales, you’re also introduced to - from a single point of access - all the other devolved benefits that you may be eligible for. Whether that’s free school meals or council tax benefits or whatever. Well I know some job centres in Wales have integrated that, with the local authorities, into their work. But it’s far from universal. So I’d like to see what they’ve been calling for for many years bear fruit.” He goes on to discuss how many constituents have issues with eligibility criteria and from what he’s saying it's clear to me that there are solutions presenting themselves to the Welsh government but little seems to be being done to implement them. He says, “Wales has now the highest poverty levels, amongst the UK nations since, I think Joseph Rowntree said, since 1998. You know, devolution was supposed to bring the power closer to the people and to be used to tackle some of these relative poverty and disability - deprivation gaps. Although absolute wealth has grown, the relative gaps have persisted. And Wales still has those highest points. So longer term, we need to work with people like the Co-Production Network for Wales, with the Building Communities Trust, who I was with on Saturday, to genuinely empower and enable communities to be part of the solution to problems they encounter, longer term.”

Ultimately, throughout the interview it was clear to me that Mark felt more could be done by the Welsh government, especially to support those with disabilities who often find themselves experiencing food and fuel poverty for no other reasons than the limitations they face medically. He talks about wonderful ways in which he is keen for communities in Wales, specifically disabled communities, to be in more control over their support. When telling me about one particular campaign he says, “This was a Disability Wales campaign - Independent Living now - to give people voice, choice, control and independence, if they wish to have it. Not ‘there you go, take the money and go away, we’re not gonna give any more help’ - choose if they wish to have greater independence, but choose the degree to which they want that, without pulling the rug away, in terms of statutory support. And it operates quite effectively, in Scotland and England but the Welsh government has been less willing to implement the full range of freedoms that have been made available to people in different parts of the UK, under different parties.” I think it's something that definitely needs to be brought in not just for those with disabilities but the idea that communities have the opportunity to “design, deliver and monitor the services they themselves use and rely on.” is a strong way to work towards everybody feeling more supported by those in positions of power. And I think we really do have to question why the Welsh government is reluctant to bring in something like this when it is shown to operate well? 

“I don’t think any one sector that you mentioned, can do it on their own. I think people working together, that’s community - you know, county and national level - is the answer.”

The final quote I’d like to take from Mark is one that stuck with me because of the way he empowers the individual and community, he said, “You know, just because you’ve got an illness or condition doesn’t mean you aren’t a - a complete person with great strengths, able to live a full life and contribute to your community. But many people may be sitting quite apart from the problems they have, in loneliness, in social isolation, any mental health problems, when they actually have strengths to help the community and therefore help them tackle their loneliness and integrate.” And I think this is such a strong statement as I think often the individual communities get disregarded when serious topics get brought up for debate, but actually it's those who are experiencing the issue who we need to listen to most.

Community is what this all comes back to really. Not only feeling supported by those around you but by those that represent you as well. I think often it can feel like your struggles are falling on deaf ears, and right now to an extent they probably are. Solving an issue as serious as food poverty isn’t just going to happen overnight, but also isn’t just going to be solved by one sector of society doing everything in their power to help. I like to think that through the work we did early in the year I’ve touched base with all layers of the cake. Those in a position of power, local social enterprises and support charities, smaller community lead groups, and then those individuals in the community who need the support. And something that has resonated with me is within North Wales there is a disconnect between these groups. Something Andrew Parkhurst said stuck with me, “I don’t think any one sector that you mentioned, can do it on their own. I think people working together, that’s community - you know, county and national level - is the answer. The powers that be need to put on their thinking caps about how to remove this stigma. And how to get across that this is not people’s faults.” And that's it isn’t it.

It’s easy to assume the government are doing everything they can, but if I’ve learnt anything from Llyr, Andrew and Mark it's that more could be done, more can always be done. It’s actually quite frustrating, I’m glad on one hand that those in positions of power are also unhappy with the support that's out there, but on the other hand what does that actually mean? If they can’t push for change, who can? But that’s why, going back to Andrew’s point, community, on a national level, is vital to solving this crisis. Just look at the way people pulled together during COVID, why can’t we do that now. I’d like to thank Llyr, Andrew and Mark for talking to me. At first I was scared, the idea of speaking with an official politician seems so important and formal and in some ways it is, but at the end of the day we’re all human, and especially right now we all to some extent understand struggle. And I felt to an extent some relief knowing that for different reasons, Llyr, Andrew and Mark, are all pushing for more to be done. So I think my biggest piece of advice is speak to your local MP’s, your local councillors, because the chances are they feel the same way you do, and your voice is the important one. Statistics have nothing on real life experiences, and we need to get those voices in the room because at the end of the day, what's the point of having those debates if you’re not listening to the person who is being impacted.