Landlords should be forced to provide cooker and fridge, says group of MPs
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Version 0 of 1. Landlords who fail to provide basic cooking and kitchen facilities, leaving low-income tenants reliant on expensive processed meals and takeaway food, should have their licences revoked, an all-party group of MPs has said. The all-party parliamentary group on hunger has written to ministers asking for councils to be given powers to specify the provision of basic items such as a fridge and a two-ring electrical hob as a condition of landlords being able to let to tenants in receipt of housing benefit. MPs acted after food banks reported that their clients were often unable to carry out basic cooking such as boiling a pan of pasta or rice because the kitchen of their private-rented home contained only a microwave oven. The crackdown on landlords is one of a series of recommendations included in a six-month progress report on the all-party Feeding Britain group, aimed at tackling the rise of food poverty in the UK. The original Church of England-funded report, published before Christmas, set out 77 initiatives to halt the rise in food banks, improve the food system, make the social security system more efficient, and tackle “the significant number of hungry people” in the UK. Feeding Britain noted that some low-income tenants were unable to prepare healthy meals because their kitchens were poorly equipped, because they could not afford to switch on gas or electricity to cook, or because they lacked basic cooking and food management skills. The progress report, to be published this week, criticises the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) for failing to act swiftly on promises made last year to trial simple improvements to the benefits system, which it claims would halve demand for food banks overnight It says the DWP has yet to say when it will pilot changes such as speeding up the time taken to process benefits, which can often take weeks, and introducing a yellow-card warning system to claimants at risk of having their benefits sanctioned. The Labour MP Frank Field, the chair of the group, told The Guardian: “If you are on your uppers and waiting 13 weeks to get benefits it is unacceptable. Where is the urgency? We are not having a seminar, we are talking about people who are hungry.” The parliamentary group has called for urgent action in a number of other areas to tackle food poverty. They include: • Requiring every government department to pay the living wage of £7.15 an hour (£9.15 in London); • Asking supermarkets to offer vouchers for free fresh fruit and vegetables to food bank clients as a part of their charitable partnership programmes; • Ensuring jobcentres make it easier for claimants waiting long periods for benefits to be processed to access cash advances on those benefits. Despite the upturn in the economy, the Feeding Britain six-month progress report notes the proportion of income spend by the poorest households on food, fuel and housing has continued to increase, from 31% in 2003 to 40% in 2012 and according to latest data, 42% in 2013. The report says: “Over the past decade, with a growing number of people finding themselves pushed closer to trouble, the proper functioning of Britain’s safety net should have played a central role in catching those in danger of falling below the national minimum, and becoming exposed to hunger. “But the rapid growth of Britain’s food bank movement over this past decade signals failure on this front. Having been battered by the severe headwinds that afflicted the world’s most advanced economies, Britain’s national minimum failed to hold firm.” It says only the “selfless dedication” of volunteers helping to run Britain’s food banks, lunch clubs and food kitchens has prevented hunger reaching “even more catastrophic levels” in Britain. Related: ‘Confront simple fact hunger stalks Britain’ urges church-funded report Field said that MPs of all parties were shocked to meet private-sector tenants whose kitchens contained just a microwave, a kettle and a shelf – and often no fridge or cooker, or cooking implements such as pots and pans. Laura Sandys, a former Tory MP who stood down before the May general election, introduced a private member’s bill earlier this year to bring facilities in private rented homes into line with minimum social sector standards, motivated in part by living conditions she encountered in the poorest ward of her former constituency, Thanet South, where 84% of accommodation was privately rented. She told MPs: “In some of the properties that I go into in my constituency, I am shocked to see that there are no cookers, only microwaves. That captures those families into having to buy expensive food, with a lack of choice and lack of resilience.” A DWP spokesman said: “We continue to spend around £94bn a year on working-age benefits, ensuring a strong safety net is in place to support people who are unemployed or on low incomes. “The vast majority of benefits are processed on time with improvements being made year on year, and the number of sanctions has actually gone down. “Jobcentre advisers use the ‘claimant commitment’ to set out very clearly what is expected when people first claim benefits. Support is also available to people who are in hardship or need an advanced benefit payment.” |