BIRKENHEAD MP Frank Field has launched an all-party Parliamentary inquiry into hunger and food poverty in Britain.
The inquiry has been set up to investigate underlying causes driving the rising demand for food aid in this country.
It will pose key questions to each of the political parties in the run-up to the next general election about how they will respond to these trends.
Mr Field submitted the inquiry’s first formal evidence at the launch yesterday morning, which took place at Lambeth Palace.
His evidence paper outlined how trends in households’ ability to cover the costs of living have been shattered over the past decade.
This trend is unprecedented in post-war Britain and follows 50 years of falling fuel and food budgets.
Mr Field said: “These fundamental changes in the relative prices in budgets of food, utilities and rent have blown sky-high the comfortable post-war assumption that our wages system and our benefit system guarantees a minimum which most of us would regard as tolerable.”
Mr Field is co-chairing the hearing with the Bishop of Truro, Tim Thornton.
The inquiry will be collecting evidence from around the country before publishing its final report in the autumn.
The inquiry’s first regional session will take place in Birkenhead on Friday, May 23.
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