‘No safety net’: People struggle to put food on table in Rishi Sunak’s constituency
Three miles from Rishi Sunak’s £1.5m manor house in the Yorkshire hamlet of Kirby Sigston, the telephone rings at the local food bank. It is a mother of four teenagers, aged 13 to 18. Little more than a week into the school holidays, they have run out of food.
Alison Grainger, the coordinator of Hambleton Foodshare, arranges for the family to be sent a parcel containing three meals for three days. The food bank is open only for emergencies on weekends, so the supplies will have to stretch to at least five days.
It feels, says Grainger, as if the charity is only “putting a plaster on a massive wound”.
“There’s nothing. There’s no safety net,” she said. “People just drop through the wee holes and everything seems to be difficult for people to navigate.”
In one of the most affluent parts of the region, in a constituency represented by the man campaigning to be prime minister – often described as the wealthiest MP in parliament – a growing number of people are struggling to cope with the rising cost of living.
Hambleton Foodshare issued 397 parcels in May – its busiest ever month and nearly double the number of May last year. It gave out more emergency supplies in April, May and June this year – 1,055 – than it did in its whole first year of operation in 2012. More than half of the 1,970 food parcels distributed in the first six months of this year have been for children.
Sunak, who has represented the constituency of Richmond, in North Yorkshire, since 2015, became the first frontline politician to make the Sunday Times rich list this year, with an estimated fortune of £730m with his wife, Akshata Murty.
The couple bought a Grade II-listed manor house for £1.5m in Kirby Sigston the year he was elected. Last year, they were
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