Hunger March & Right To Food Rally
Pontypridd, 27th January 2024
Neville Southall: “dock a grand” from the salaries of politicians for the existence of food banks
Words by Andrew Draper. Photos by Dan Le Brun.
Food campaigners in Rhondda Cynon Taff called for action to end the scandal of hunger in 21st century Britain, including docking salaries of MPs and Welsh Senedd members as fines for the existence of food banks.
Mandy Haydon-Hall, food bank manager in Pontypridd, said food banks in in the RCT area fed over 23,000 people last year.
“That’s one in 11 people in RCT using food banks,” she said.
She added 12% of food parcels handed out in Wales are in a single area, RCT. Free school meals for primary school children in Wales are only for the under 11s, as if children stop being hungry when they turn 11, she said. “Change can happen, but it's got to come from the bottom. It’s not coming from the top.”
Activist and former Wales footballer Neville Southall said it’s not just in Wales where people are going hungry. It’s all over the world and we should learn from other countries how they deal with it, he said.
Fines for politicians
He demanded MPs and Welsh Senedd members be fined for the existence of food banks: “I’d take a grand off your wages every year for every food bank in your area,” he said.
The question of food poverty and hunger has to be cross party, he argued, saying it is too big for any one party to solve. The redundancies announced by Tata Steel in Port Talbot will lead to “massive food bank demand”, he said, adding there was little alternative work in the area.
The march and rally was organised by Rhondda Cynon Taff Trades Union Council in conjunction with Beth Winter, Labour MP for Cynon Valley. Trades council secretary Jason Richards told the rally in the YMA, in Pontypridd, that in 1927 hundreds of miners marched to London to highlight the plight of hunger and poverty in their communities. Some died on the march. He called for the right of all to have access to healthy nutritious food.
He said in Aberdare, members of his communication workers' union, the CWU, had shown great solidarity with their community by raising funds for foodbanks, even during a lengthy pay dispute and strike of their own to deal with. “The right to food is a basic human right,” he said.
“Even working people are turning to food banks. The trade union movement has always been at the fore...It’s unacceptable in a prosperous society that anyone should choose between heating and eating.”
He called for legislation to protect the right to food, adding that hunger is “a political choice.”
Beth Winter told the campaign rally she felt “quite ashamed” to be at the march and rally as a politician.
“It’s an indictment 97 years later we’re having to campaign on food poverty. We've got over 14 million people living in poverty in the United Kingdom…it's an absolute disgrace and we should be angry. We should be angry. It’s shameful.”
She said she was filled with hope and been “very blessed” to share an office in parliament with Ian Byrne, Labour MP for Liverpool, West Derby. He is a tireless food rights campaigner, and Winter said she had learnt so much from him.
She said campaigners should also be calling on the Welsh Government to enshrine the right to food in law. “Food banks have become normalised. We want an end to them,” she demanded.
Power lies in communities
She went on to talk about the Westminster bubble and called for a change to politics in this country. The power lies in our communities and we need to recognise and use that, she said. “It is the power to tell those in political power that we won't put up with this anymore. We’ve seen that in other parts of the world."
Robbie Woodland, president in Cornwall of the BFAWU bakeries' and food workers' union, gave an entertaining but combative speech, in which he said it is for workers and ordinary people to push and say that we will not be putting up with poverty any more. “We will fight with you…we’re a union that won’t give in,” he said.
He called for the abolition of poverty in all its forms, which can only be achieved if people work together and stick together.
He rounded off with a message to politicians: “We will damn well all sack you if you don’t shape up.” They have power in their hands to change this, he said.
The event collected food for local food banks and was entertained by a group of singers and dancers from Nigeria, called Big Hearts International.
Gallery
Here are the photos from the Hunger March and Right To Food Rally. Click an image to enlarge. All photos provided by Dan Le Brun.
For more images and alternative sizes, please see Dan Le Brun's Flickr album.
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