Claudia Webbe – 2022 Speech on the Cost of Food

The speech made by Claudia Webbe, the Independent MP for Leicester East, in Westminster Hall, the House of Commons, on 14 December 2022.

Thank you, Mr Gray. Food poverty is a political choice. It is slow violence; we are talking about social murder. The sheer numbers of people who are suffering hardship in this country is staggering. The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show that over 20 million people in the UK have been forced to cut back their spending on food and essentials because of the spiralling cost of living. Despite the energy crisis, the No. 1 reason that they reported for having to cut their spending was the rocketing price of food itself. One in six households in the UK are food-insecure. In Leicester East, where more than four in 10 children live in poverty and food bank use has soared by more than 300% in recent years, people are facing the worst of this crisis. Food-bank use is again at record levels, and the numbers are rocketing up. These are horrifying figures; a country with so many people in these situations cannot claim to be truly civilised.

I will end on this, because I want to tell this story. It seems that the most popular—

James Gray (in the Chair)

Order. We will not bother with the story— thank you. I call Patricia Gibson.