Tory MP claims food bank users ‘cannot cook or budget properly’ and meals cost 30p a day
A Conservative MP has sparked anger after saying poorer people rely on food banks because they “cannot cook properly”, and that meals can be cooked “for around 30p”.
Lee Anderson told the Commons those who want to register for help must sign up for a “budgeting course and a cooking course.”
When asked by Labour MP Alex Cunningham if it should “be necessary to have food banks in 21st Century Britain?”, the Tory politician for Ashfield, claimed there is “not this massive use for food banks in this country.
“We have got generation after generation who cannot cook properly. They cannot cook a meal from scratch. They cannot budget.”
“When people come now for a food parcel, they’ve got to register for a budgeting course and a cooking course.
“And what we do at the food bank, we show them how to cook cheap and nutritious meals on a budget.
“We can make a meal for around 30p a day and this is cooking from scratch.”
This comes amid a growing cost of living crisis which has plunged millions of people into the risk of food and energy poverty.
Karen Buck MP, Labour’s shadow work and pensions minister said: ““In the world where people actually live we now hear daily stories of families going without food and others unable to turn their ovens on in fear of rising energy bills.
“The idea that the problem is cooking skills and not 12 years of government decisions that are pushing people into extreme poverty is beyond belief. Out of touch doesn’t even cover it.”
Anderson was ridiculed with the National Director of the charity Feeding Britain, Andrew Forsey, saying according to the Mirror: : “With incomes now lagging way behind the cost of living, charities like ours are increasingly dealing with outright destitution where people cannot afford the gas and electricity they need to cook meals from scratch”
Watch Lee Anderson make his controversial comments in the Commons here: