Northumberland Labour says it’s scandalous that nearly one in four households in the county are affected by food insecurity as reported by the Trussle Trust and local newspapers.

Northumberland Leader Scott Dickinson MBE said: “In 2023 in a rich country it’s an absolute scandal that nearly a quarter of people living in households in our county are unable to consistently provide healthy food for themselves and their families.

“Something has gone badly wrong with our government and local council and its policies that they think working people relying on food banks to get by is normal. Years of Tory Government and Tory Council Control in Northumberland have been a perfect storm.

“For more than a decade this government has singularly failed the people it’s supposed to be serving. In the last general election, the Tories won many seats in old Labour heartlands with the promise of levelling up and responding to the needs of those who put their faith in them at the ballot box.

“Instead what we have seen is no less than a catastrophe; suppressing wages to the extent that there has now been massive industrial unrest and a government which refuses, until the very last moment, to even get around a table with trade unions asking for decent rates of pay, prime ministers who fly in for a short period and destabilise the economy by claiming to make the rich richer will trickle down to ordinary people. It’s never worked, it doesn’t work and it will never work. It’s not rocket science, but rather a total disregard for the people of this country.

“While the government is trying out its various experiments on the British people it’s the people in our county who suffer. This has got to change and it will under a Labour government committed to serving people in the way that an effective and responsible government should.”