Highland Councillors have invited a government minister to the north as shock new figures show an increase in the number of Highlanders seeking handouts from foodbanks.
The region’s demand increased last year by 5%, compared with a national increase of 2%.
In a debate yesterday, members linked the figures to benefit reforms, and issued an invitation to Inverness-born Stephen Crabb, the recently appointed Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.
It emerged that 5,536 people – including 1,590 children – received a three-day emergency food parcel from a Highland foodbank in 2015-16.
That compared with respective figures of 5,254 and 1,340 the previous year.
Council leader Margaret Davidson attributed the increase in the north to low pay and growing difficulty in finding jobs, not least in the wake of huge losses in the oil industry and the fall-out for north communities.
Speaking after the debate, she told the Press and Journal: “What we’re doing at the moment is interviewing a lot of benefit recipients and trying to capture their experiences so we fully understand the situation.
“All we can do is raise the profile of it and convey that directly to the ngovernment minister. He needs to listen.
“When you take the sort of money out of benefits that the UK Government is proposing that’s going to have an impact the length and breadth of the Highlands.
“Of course the Highlands is at the heart of my thinking but I’m not asking him to make the Highlands a special case. I simply want the government to take a less harsh hand with the welfare reforms for everyone in the UK.”
The region’s Citizens Advice Bureaux are contacted by an average of 55 people a day of which almost half are categorised as people in “severe poverty.” Many have had benefits halted.
Liberal Democrat group leader Alasdair Christie, who also runs Inverness CAB, said: “We’re seeing no improvement as a result of welfare reform. If anything, we’re seeing people impacted healthwise, their mental health suffering because of the stress of the reforms.”
A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said: “”Reasons for food bank use are complex, so it’s misleading to link it to any one thing.
“Our reforms are incentivising work and ensuring we have a system which is fair to those who use it and those who pay for it.
“Employment in Scotland is up by 141,000 since 2010. Across the UK, we continue to spend around £90billion a year on a strong welfare safety net for those who need it.”
