The New Normal

Poverty in parts of Scotland is so severe that food banks are regarded as “the norm” in some communities, Nicola Sturgeon’s top adviser on poverty Douglas Hamilton, chairman of the Poverty and Inequality Commission, previously the head of Save the Children in Scotland warned.

He said it was “absolutely shocking” that emergency food handouts were becoming accepted as an everyday fact of life. He said politicians in Scotland were in danger of becoming complacent about tackling poverty, warning that warm words and tough targets were not enough. While setting such a tough target was commendable, he pointed out, it would be meaningless unless it was followed up with similarly bold actions.

“There is a real danger of complacency setting in, with politicians and political parties generally, about tackling poverty,” he said. “You get in a situation where almost everyone agrees. People come up from Westminster and say, ‘It’s amazing, the rhetoric’s completely different up here, it’s much more progressive’, but we don’t have actions that match up to that.” He added: “The very existence of a food bank should be a real flashing neon sign saying, ‘We’ve got a problem’. “There’s a real danger you start to accept these things as the norm rather than saying, ‘This isn’t right, it shouldn’t be happening’. We need to warn against complacency.”

Hamilton added: “We’ll no longer be able to say, ‘The reason why there’s so many people in poverty in Scotland is because of Westminster benefit policies’.”