Gove thinks those who turn to food banks are there because of their "own decisions"

[MurderOfGoths]

Link

"I had the opportunity to visit a food bank in my constituency only on Friday and I appreciate that there are families who do face considerable pressures. It's often as a result of some decisions that have been taken by those families which mean that they are not best able to manage their finances"

I hate that this govt pulls the rug from under people and then blames them for it.

So you make a bad decision, you and your family deserve to starve for it?!
Don't be a dick
Putting the redundancies, illnesses etc etc to one side for a min, lets look at these 'bad decisions'.
These bad decisions probably happened at a time when the economic turn down meant that it was catastrophic, 5 years previous the economy would have allowed them to ride it out.

Leaving aside the moral repugnance of what he says, that statement doesn't even make sense. No-one decides to be broke and struggle to feed their kids. No-one wants that. Most people are simply doing their best. Perhaps they decided to take a job but got made redundant, they decided to have another baby and then their marriage broke down, or their spouse died, they became disabled (I guess even he couldn't accuse anyone of 'deciding' to do that) and could no longer work. if anything people who end up in this position may or may not have been guilty of a small amount of misjudgement but also had a big dose of bad luck.

H and I are doing OK. We aren't well off but stable. We have some savings but most of our incomes goes to feeding the kids and keeping a roof over their heads. If I lost my job we'd be up shit creek without a paddle fairly soon. It happened to a friend of mine - it took her over a year to get another job and she had to sell her home meanwhile.They are hand to mouth. She didn't make any bad decisions. She was unlucky.

Ah who needs facts hey? Not when they can rely on dodgy stereotypes instead.. much more reliable.

MurderOfGoths: genuinely interested: where can we find these stats? I presume as you have seen them you can furnish me with a link because I find trawling government websites for data a fairly frustrating exercise.

This article goes over some of the statistics published by the Trussel Trust earlier this year.

Oh and here's the actual report.

I am starting to wonder if Gove is the RL equivalent of an MN troll....

For some people, not just famillies, but going and old people alike they have a choice of keeping the roof over their heads or feeding themselves. I am fortunate that I haven't had to visit a food bank as yet but when your given the option of being out in the cold on the street with no way of cooking food or asking for help with food and keeping a roof over your head it's obvious people are gonna keep the roof n use food banks to survive. Some of these people wouldnt last a night in winter on the streets. Rents are high and so is gas abd electric

Is Gove referring to the people who access foodbanks because of benefit mixups[50% according to the link] or is he refering to others, or both? Am confused.

Well given that the exact wording he used was "It's often as a result of some decisions that have been taken by those families" I think we can assume he was referring to a large amount of all food bank users.

Thanks Murder will read that when my dissertation is printing.

Someone up thread said CAB are collating info too, but no idea if they've published it.

When you're too unwell to work, but the DWP/Atos says you are well enough - because you can push a button - your benefit is usually stopped before you receive the decision letter. In this letter, you're told to apply for JSA. (Please note, the letter does not tell you that you can receive a reduced amount of ESA while appealing, if you send a medical certificate.)

When you go to sign for JSA, as instructed, the JCP asks you whether you're fit for work, as this is a condition of claiming. Your fitness according to the DWP itself does not count. If you're unfit to work in the real world (as differentiated from Atos world), you cannot legally claim JSA.

Thus, you are left without income by the DWP's own system. As soon as ESA or JSA are stopped, housing benefit stops too.

In another scenario, it's now been evidenced that JCPs are told to sanction a certain proportion of jobseekers' benefits. Consequently, claimants are having their benefits stopped for trumped-up reasons: a popular one is failing to attend an appointment you were not told about. Again, loss of JSA means instant stoppage of all other benefits.

Sick claimants, too, are being sanctioned for failure to comply with therapeutic or back-to-work programmes inflicted on them by so-called providers. ESA claimants have had their benefits stopped for not being able to get to an upstairs appointment in a wheelchair, failing to go to appointments they weren't told about, collapsing in meetings, being in hospital, and many other Orwellian 'crimes'. Loss of ESA means instant stoppage of all other benefits.

Social fund grants have been discontinued, leaving budgeting loans in their place. Budgeting loans are repaid directly from your benefits, in instalments. You cannot have a budgeting loan if you can't prove your ability to pay it back. If you're not getting any benefits and have an income of £0, obviously you're not able to provide this. You won't get a loan.

If poor decisions lead to destitution in this country, the unwise choice was probably "trusting the government"!

People, Gove is just staying 'on message' here. Some inconvenient truths about food banks came out, this is the counteroffensive. With the emphasis on offensive, of course.

This is a monstrous government. Expect them to behave monstrously.

the govt. motto should be never let the truth get in the way of a popular prejudice. Or, failing a popular prejudice, create one pdq.

my poor decision was trusting the benefit system to honour its obligations after 30 years of paying national insurance and providing the money I had paid insurance to recieve if I lost my job.

I suggest the govt returns all NI contributions to people they deem not worthy of benefits.

I see the the hysterical lefties are out in force again howling at the sky. Howl all you like things are changing for the better and there aint a thing you can do about it!

Shit,have they taken the vote off 'lefties' now too?

Gove is a massive massive cock of monumental proportions.

I bet that he got his dickhead face flushed down the toilet on many occasions at school.

Eineschlampa have you actually looked at the new national curriculum? Or heard about gcse courses pupils are already taking being changed part way through the course? How is that change for the better?

eine...your charm is seductive, but not convincing.

Ooh, I dunno, s/he's certainly changed my mind. No point in being a leftie after all, if some twat on a talkboard tells me not to.

Not the lefties, just anyone who is not property owning and earning over 60K a year. The rest must just be do darn stupid if all they can do is be ooh, teachers, nurses, nannies, streetcleaners, doctors...