Between April and September this year, the Trussell Trust – the UK’s largest emergency food provider – gave 658,048 food parcels to people in crisis. If someone had suggested, say, 40 years ago that so many of our fellow citizens would need to go up to a complete stranger and…

Nowadays, barely an advice surgery of mine goes by without someone asking for help with their personal independence payment (PIP). PIP has replaced the old disability living allowance and as a result many people are going through new assessments. Mainly, people come about decisions to refuse them PIP or to…

It is a great honour to have been invited to give this the third Harold Wilson Memorial lecture here at the University of Bradford with which he had such a long and close association. Little did I know when, as an 11 year-old, I attended a Labour Party rally in…

It is sadly all too common in our big cities these days, Leeds included, to see people sitting on the ground asking for money or huddled up against the cold sleeping in doorways. Homelessness is on the increase, but the vast majority of people affected contact their local council to…