 The Department of Work and Pensions within the UK government is in denial about the cause of the increase in food bank use. This is the conclusion of the Scottish Parliament's Welfare Reform Committee in a report published today. Following months of evidence-taking, the committee has concluded that welfare reform is a significant cause of the rise in demand. The only thing that I can compare this to is the books that we read as children and the films that we've seen written by Charles Dickens which reflected that the type of society we had over a hundred years ago. It's not just about people who have dropped completely out of society, we're talking about people who are making a contribution to society in the workplace, but are still dependent on food banks and that just cannot be acceptable. Concerns about the impact of benefit sanctions have led the committee to urge the UK government to recognise that people are struggling to meet their basic need for food due to its direct action. They're frightened, they're insecure, they have no money. We get a phone call the other day, the Social Work Department. Can you give us food for a family that they don't need to cook because there's no money for their electricity? Within its report, the committee praises the dedication and commitment shown by food bank volunteers, but makes it clear that food bank provisions should not creep into the welfare state. One of our members, Linda Fabiani, actually visited food banks in Canada and America and one of the issues there, the situation there is that these food banks are almost a formal part of their welfare system. That's not something we want to see happening, we don't see that established here in Scotland. We should see food banks for what they are, they are community resilience, they are charitable organisations that have come together to try and deal with the situation now, but actually we should deal with the root cause of the demand, try and lessen that demand and not have food banks here for the long term in Scotland. To read the committee's report in full, please visit the Scottish Parliament website.