Food poverty exists. It certainly exists in east Swansea. What has surprised me has been foodbanks starting up in what I always thought of as the rich suburbs of west Swansea. Of the eight wards in Swansea East, six of them have foodbanks. The two that do not are very close to foodbanks in the neighbouring areas. The use of foodbanks was increasing before the COVID-19 pandemic, has effectively doubled during the pandemic, and all indications are that this situation will continue to get worse. Foodbanks in Swansea are recent; that is, mainly post 2010. Most are run by religious organisations—churches, chapels and the mosque—and others are run by people in the community who care for those around them. They have no other need than to try and help those less fortunate than themselves.

Since 2010, there's been a huge growth in foodbanks and the numbers attending. Part of this is driven by the gig economy and irregular hours. When you're working 30 and 40 hours a week and you're just about managing, when you go down to seven hours a week you're just about not managing. Of course, being ill is not allowed. That's why so many people have been unwilling to isolate during COVID. Their children would go hungry if they isolated, and that's been a problem that has not been addressed. 

If I had, 40 years ago, told my 21-year-old self that people would be going hungry in Wales, and that foodbanks were coming as the new soup kitchens, I would not have believed that could happen. I'd have said, 'Really, you don't mean 2021—you mean 1821'. People going hungry; remember those on the right who said, 'We didn't have poverty in this country, everything was okay, no-one is going hungry'. Well, that's changed, hasn't it? People are now food hungry. The cruel cut in universal benefit has made matters a lot worse for many families. I'll record a few examples of food poverty. The mother who had not eaten for three days so that her children could eat, who on being given food at a foodbank immediately opened and ate a tin of beans. The woman who told me that a way to keep your stomach full was to eat toilet paper, or other paper, which would then fill you up. Or someone asking at the foodbank for no food that needs heating because they cannot afford to heat it up. Welcome to twenty-first century Wales. 

It could have been different if the Lib Dems had decided to side with Labour and not the Conservatives in 2010, bringing in a decade of austerity. And 'austerity' is such a neutral word. What is has meant is many going cold and hungry. That's why many of us have been asking for free school meals to be expanded into the summer holiday. That's why many of us have been asking for the expansion of free school meals to primary school pupils, except those in fee-paying schools.

Finally, I donate and collect for the local foodbanks, and I thank the South Wales Evening Post for publishing my requests, and can I also thank all those people who give to help others? However, I look forward to a society where foodbanks are not needed, where no-one goes hungry. I've been told that this is a bizarre new utopia. I have said it isn't—it was what the 1960s and 1970s Wales that I grew up in was like, and I hope that we move back to that as soon as possible.