‘Everyone deserves the basics to live’: Councillors back foodbank’s call for essentials guarantee

Councillors in Cambridge have agreed to back calls for an ‘Essentials Guarantee’ to legally require Universal Credit to cover the basics needed in life. Members of Cambridge City Council said they wanted to see an end to “hunger and hardship”, recognising the “huge pockets of deprivation” in the city.

Cambridge City Foodbank said it is “delighted” the city council agreed to voice support for its campaign. The foodbank said it is seeing a rising number of people needing its help. In the last 12 months the organisation said it had provided over 17,000 emergency food parcels to people in the city.

Councillor Elliot Tong ( Green Party ) said Cambridge was one of the “most unequal cities in the UK”. While he said “huge amounts of wealth” was being created by the science and technology industries, he said this was not shared equally across the city and that there were “huge pockets of deprivation”.

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He said: “Every single person in my eyes deserves to live here with the essentials they need to live a happy fulfilling life, I don’t think there should be any caveat on that. However, it is especially shocking to see the amount of people in full time work who are contributing the essential goods and services that underpin that research in the city, and they are not receiving nearly adequate amount of compensation for that work. We have to acknowledge there is an issue in Cambridge.”

Cllr Tong asked the city council to “stand up and support” the ‘Essentials Guarantee’ campaign, which was launched by the Trussell Trust foodbanks and the Joseph Roundtree Foundation. The charities have claimed that “inadequate social security” is the “main driver” of people having to turn to a foodbank to feed themselves and their families.

The organisations have therefore called for the government to set a legal minimum in Universal Credit, which would provide a standard allowance that allows people to buy the essentials, such as food, utilities, and vital household items. As well as this, the charities have called for an independent process to regularly review and recommend the essential guarantee level, based on the cost of essentials.

Councillors at the city council voiced their support for the ‘Essentials Guarantee’. Councillor Antoinette Nestor ( Labour ) said the ‘Essentials Guarantee’ represented a "beacon of light in this challenging landscape”. She said there needed to be an end to “hunger and hardship” in the city, adding that “everyone deserves a life of dignity”.

Councillor Cheney Payne ( Liberal Democrat ) said the data and statistics on the number of people living in hardship and needing the help of foodbanks in order to eat was “alarming and shocking”. She said it was a “stark reminder of the growing hardship” some people in the community were facing.

Cllr Payne said the Liberal Democrat group saw the ‘Essentials Guarantee’ as a tool to help tackle the issues of food security and poverty. However, she said it should be “one tool as part of a much broader picture”, adding that more work needed to be done to address food poverty and “ensure everyone can live safe and well”.

Councillor Delowar Hossain ( Conservative ) said he “wholly” supported the motion. He also criticised the “harsh” policies of the Labour government, which he claimed were “making circumstances more difficult for everyone”, and said people were having to choose between heating their homes and eating.

However, Councillor Simon Smith (Labour) hit back at Cllr Hossain’s comments, he argued it was the Conservative government that “broke Britain” and claimed the Labour government was now ‘fixing the foundations’. Ultimately the council agreed to pass the motion originally put forward by Cllr Tong to support the campaign, but with amendments from the Labour group.

Steve Clay, CEO of Cambridge City Foodbank, said: “We are delighted that the council has backed our call to work towards reforming social security in line with the Guarantee Our Essentials campaign. Some of the steps taken in the recent budget, including capping debt repayments to 15 per cent, are a positive move towards an Essentials Guarantee, but much more needs to be done in order to lift the thousands of people that we serve out of poverty.

“We’re currently providing over 17,000 emergency food parcels to our visitors across a 12 month period, and this figure is sadly rising. If nothing further changes, need will likely continue to rise. As long as there are people turning to us for food, we will continue to call for the government to do more to eventually end the need for foodbanks.”