The Scottish Labour leader yesterday said he was “shocked and sickened” to hear that some north-east food banks have been so busy that they have run out of stock.
Jim Murphy was visiting the team behind youth homelessness and unemployment charity, the Aberdeen Foyer, before last night’s televised debate at Aberdeen University.
He was joined by Labour’s Aberdeen South candidate, Dame Anne Begg, during the tour of the charity’s Marywell Street centre.
Mr Murphy insisted voting Labour at the General Election was only way to end what he labelled the “crushing austerity” being imposed on the north-east by the Conservative-led coalition at Westminster.
And he said he feared the slump in the price of oil might lead to more families becoming dependent on charities.
Mr Murphy said: “I am shocked and sickened by stories that there are so many people using food banks in Aberdeen that they have run out of food. What type of world is it when a society as rich as ours, as prosperous as ours, has so many children having to be fed by charity?
“There is a better way of running this country. It is a country free of food banks, but it also has to be a country free of a Tory government.
“I worry that with the recent crash in the oil price the economy in the north-east is affected so dramatically that wages will fall, unemployment will increase and the people here will be dependent on charity to be fed.
“What we need is a government that is going to do things more fairly, rather than a government that looks at the poor and says ‘ach well, it is your own fault’.”
Ms Begg said: “The work the Foyer does is fantastic and they do it on a shoestring budget.
“They often have to struggle to get funding – so if we have got another five years of a Tory government not only will we see more people who need centres like this, we will also be in danger of seeing centres like this being under-funded for the work that they do.”
Last month, another Aberdeen charity, Instant Neighbour, was forced to make an emergency appeal after revealing that its food bank had run out of supplies.
The plea prompted a generous response, with companies, groups and individuals donating thousands of pounds worth of items.