4 min read2 hr

In 2018, there was a consultation on whether a handful of walkers could pass through a small ground in Lancashire for two hours every Sunday. In 2023, it was decided there was a need for the same consultation again.

The full machinery of government was marshalled in a similar way as it would for policies worth billions.

If you log on to GOV.UK right now, you will find a never-ending list of other government consultations. Many of these are a great way to gather feedback and the views of the public on important issues affecting them and their communities.

Some of them are more questionable.

Taken in the round, they tell a compelling but concerning story. Of good intentions, probably sound individual decisions, spiralling into something else. Layers of bureaucracy that successive governments have allowed to accumulate, each intended to safeguard fairness, yet have instead created a jungle of delay, confusion, and frustration.

And not just from ministers. The civil service is full of dynamic, committed people driven by a deep sense of public service. But they are being slowly suffocated by the system around them, causing stagnation. The previous government introduced an eyewatering number of new legal duties, regulations, and statutory requirements – ironically under the banner of deregulation.

That is absurd, but what is worse is that this absurdity has real consequences: ordinary people feeling that the state is distant, immovable, or worse, not serving their interests.

I came into law not because I thought its purpose was to preserve the status quo, but because I have seen how it can enable change. I came into government to drive forward that work. And I know the Prime Minister did so, too.

We cannot leave the defence of effective government to those who would dismantle it

That is why Nick Thomas Symonds and I have been tasked with helping create a more modern, agile state, working with the new Cabinet Secretary, Antonia Romeo, whom the Prime Minister has tasked with rewiring the state to turbocharge delivery.

Nick and I are lawyers by training, recognising that governing through the law does not mean blindly following endless procedures. Governing through the law means assessing these duties, asking whether they still serve us, and, where they don’t, changing them.

The reforms we are announcing today (Thursday) are about doing exactly that. About ensuring we properly rationalise how government works, and for whom.

We cannot leave the defence of effective government to those who would dismantle it. Those who have a vested interest in talking down the state’s ability to change people’s lives for the better, who want to tear away safeguards for working people.

Good governance is about delivering for the public because the public elected us on a mandate for change.

So, part of this is ending the culture of automatic consultations. Since the start of this year, 122 consultations have been launched – around two a day. Consultations are vital when they are genuine exercises in engagement: testing assumptions, gathering evidence, shaping policy. At their best, they save the public purse, but at their worst, deployed without thought or proportionality, they cease to be tools of democracy and instead become obstacles to it.

We have repeatedly seen the consequences; process overwhelms purpose, and momentum is lost. It’s like setting out to mow the lawn, only to find yourself hacking through a jungle.

We are using the latest advances in AI to assist with identifying and reviewing legal consultation requirements that clog up the system.

But there are many other areas where we will be taking this approach.

Decision-making will be modernised and reviewed to see where routine decisions can be made without excessively burdensome processes that take weeks. New accountability measures for Permanent Secretaries will be introduced to focus on delivering the PM’s priorities, hold civil servants to account for doing so, and ensure change is lasting.

Ultimately, the machinery of government should help ministers make good, effective decisions. Sometimes that means deliberation; sometimes it means acting quickly, within the law, to deliver what people need.

The state must not be slowed by its own procedures. Its purpose is to make decisions that matter for the public we serve.

If trust depends on delivery, and delivery depends on action, then our priority is clear:

cut through the unnecessary thickets, restore the capacity to act, and ensure the state can uphold principle without suffocating under its own processes.

This isn’t the sum of our ambition — it is barely base camp — but it is the first step in a radical climb to rewire the state.

Lord Hermer is the Attorney General

Chico Khan-Gandapur is a managing partner at Metrica Consulting.

In the 2019 U.K. general election “Big Dog” Boris Johnson won by a landslide: 365 seats, an 80 seat majority, with 43.6 per cent of the votes cast.

Fast forward to today, and despite Kemi Badenoch’s regular excoriation of Keir Starmer at weekly PMQ’s, a great Conference, and a policy suite that is Conservative through and through, the Party’s vote share is anchored at just 16 -18 per cent (Politico’s Poll of Polls).  13.96 million voted Conservative in 2019, yet current polling would suggest just 5.4 million voters would now, nothing short of a collapse.

I addressed this in an earlier article for ConservativeHome, The Conservative Party Brand Must Shift With Behavioural Science, back in December:

 “…The wholesale abandonment and ongoing voter indifference to the Conservative brand is not simply a, ‘we are fed up’ moment, or a ‘protest’ vote; rather, it reflects deeper, more structural issues.  Traditional attempts to understand this challenge and turn it around have floundered.  The breakthrough lies in analysing this situation through the lens of behavioural science…”

This second essay expands on these themes, and encouragingly finds the Party employing several of the strategies needed to improve its standings, but it still needs to go much further and deeper.

The subject Behavioural Political Science distinguishes between Policy‑Based support, agreement with specific positions, and Affective Partisanship, the sense of emotional loyalty or identification with a specific Party.  Extensive research shows these two dimensions of support, while related, are actually distinct psychologically.  Individuals may like a party’s ideas but without feeling it represents their group identity, and similarly, may stick with a party they feel close to despite disagreeing with several of its policies.

Neuroscientific studies of political engagement reinforce this distinction, demonstrating that perceptions of leaders and party brands activate emotional and social‑cognitive circuits, not just rational policy evaluation.  This evidence supports the view that voters respond to cues about Trust, Competence and Identity at least as much as they do to detailed policy platforms.  Indeed, some studies argue Trust, Respect and Like together drive 75 per cent of voter intentions, leaving just 25 per cent for policy evaluation – a huge relative difference.

Analysis of the 2024 election suggests Conservatives lost its 2019 voters over perceptions of incompetence, and a loss of trust in the Party as a consequence.  But where these voters subsequently went to was shaped by their values.  Many of those defecting to Labour cited a desire for stability, integrity and competent management of public services (which has obviously backfired) while those moving to Reform placed greater weight on immigration, cultural issues and a sense of voice for People Like Us.  The latter is classic affective politics: voters searching for a party that feels like it’s on their side.

For the Conservatives to turn these challenges around, Behavioural Analysis suggests three interlocking approaches.

First, they must re‑establish visible competence and reliability.  Voters frequently use heuristics (mental short-cuts)  and simple stories to cope with political complexity, such as, ‘they’re useless, they never do what they say’.  Once these negative labels are attached to a party, they are hard to shake-off and negatively impact subsequent information with voters discounting new promises.

The party therefore needs a period of disciplined, almost boring delivery on a small number of salient promises, chosen to be easily observable and personally relevant.  The aim is to replace the prevailing dominant heuristic with a different one: this party now does what it says, consistently and competently.  This requires internal restraint – fewer headline‑grabbing but undelivered pledges, and quieter follow‑through, highlighting a distinction and contrast between those in office.  The Stronger Economy, Stronger Country promises to align with this approach

Second, the Conservatives must rebuild Identity and Belonging.  Behavioural research shows people are strongly motivated by social identity and group attachment.  When voters feel that a party comprises people like me, they are more willing to engage, forgive missteps and tolerate policy disagreements.  When they feel looked down on, ignored or taken for granted, they become open to alternatives which recognise their status and concerns.

For Conservatives this means addressing messages and local engagement that underpin we are for people like you to distinct groups of electorates: older homeowners anxious about crime and disorder; younger families worrying about housing and childcare; small‑business owners struggling with regulation and costs; aspirational working‑class voters who care about order, fairness and tangible opportunities.  Recent messaging from Harrogate, the Party of Common Sense and the Common Ground, acknowledges this requirement.

But it also implies investing in local presence – councillors, associations, community campaigns – as attachment is often and more effectively forged through repeated, face‑to‑face interactions rather than national broadcasts alone.  This is an area which Conservatives need to expand significantly in their attempts to reconnect with nearly 8.5mln lost voters.

Third, they must restore Stable Narratives and Messengers.  Frequent leadership changes and visible factional conflict have repeatedly broken this vital attachment process by resetting and changing cues about what being a Conservative actually means.  Each change of leader and slogan has required voters to ask whether the party has truly changed, or whether it remains the same fractious organisation, but just behind new branding.  In this respect, several defections from the Conservatives to Reform will likely prove beneficial, and might even work to pollute the reputation of the destination Party.

Behavioural and neuroscientific work emphasises the importance of the perceptions of the leader.  Images serve as powerful proxies for party brands, with voters responding to the characteristics they perceive in a leader – steady or chaotic, sincere or cynical, like them or out of touch – and then generalise that to the party.  Conservatives therefore need leaders and local representatives who embody a coherent story about order, opportunity and stewardship over time, rather than a sequence of conflicting personas and narratives.  This breadth of leadership, especially locally, is wanting currently.

Taken together, these behavioural insights point to the need for a broader strategic shift.  The party should approach politics less as a marketplace for policy products and more as a long‑term relationship in which attachment is built through Reliability, Respect and Recognition.

Intellectual policy work remains necessary, but is not by itself sufficient: it must be accompanied by a deliberate attachment strategy that treats trust, identity and emotional resonance as core design prerequisites rather than as optional extras.  Conservatives must demonstrate visible delivery alongside competence in everyday, tangible ways, re‑anchoring the party in the lived identities of key voter groups.

While progress has been made, there is still much more work to be done, especially at the local level.  Upcoming local authority elections in May will be the acid test of just how far the Party has progressed.

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Writing for The House on Thursday, Hermer, a close ally of Prime Minister Keir Starmer, said: “We cannot leave the defence of effective government to those who would dismantle it.

“Those who have a vested interest in talking down the state’s ability to change people’s lives for the better, who want to tear away safeguards for working people.”

The Attorney General’s warning comes after the Labour government on Thursday announced a series of reforms designed to speed up government decision-making and tackle what it described as a “consultation culture” in Whitehall. 

In addition to reducing the number of consultations, the government will use AI to identify red tape, as well as streamline the ‘write-round’ process, which ministers use to reach collective decisions. PoliticsHome revealed in November that write-rounds, which involve written correspondence between ministers, were frustrating government figures, who felt that the procedure was creating unnecessary delays. 

Ministers will also implement a new accountability framework for permanent secretaries to ensure departments are focused on delivering the Prime Minister’s priorities.

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has been highly critical of the civil service, arguing that it is too large and not fit for purpose.

The Observer recently reported that the party plans to sack the current cohort of permanent secretaries, who lead departments, and replace them in some cases with outsider political appointees. The newspaper reported a senior Reform figure as pointing to Donald Trump’s current administration as Farage’s inspiration.

While work on the reforms announced today started months ago, government sources told PoliticsHome that Cabinet Secretary Antonia Romeo had injected a sense of urgency. Paymaster General Nick Thomas-Symonds is also heavily involved in the work.

In his piece for The House, Hermer said that 122 consultations had been launched on the government website since January, the equivalent of two a day.

“Consultations are vital when they are genuine exercises in engagement: testing assumptions, gathering evidence, shaping policy. At their best, they save the public purse, but at their worst, deployed without thought or proportionality, they cease to be tools of democracy and instead become obstacles to it,” the Attorney General wrote.

Pointing to a “never-ending list” of consultations currently on GOV.UK, he said that while many were “a great way to gather feedback and the views of the public,” some are “more questionable”.

“Of good intentions, probably sound individual decisions, spiralling into something else.

“Layers of bureaucracy that government after government have allowed to accumulate, each intended to safeguard fairness, yet instead creating a jungle of delay, confusion, and frustration.”

He said that the civil service “is full of dynamic, committed people driven by a deep sense of public service” who are being “slowly suffocated by the system around them”.

“The state must not be slowed by its own procedures. Its purpose is to make decisions that matter for the public we serve,” the cabinet minister wrote.

“If trust depends on delivery, and delivery depends on action, then our priority is clear:

cut through the unnecessary thickets, restore the capacity to act, and ensure the state can uphold principle without suffocating under its own processes.”

Sky News recently reported that trans girls have been told to leave the Guides by 6 September 2026.

BREAKING: Transgender girls have been given until September 6 to leave the Guides.

🔗 Read more https://t.co/LhwTga7pDi

— Sky News (@SkyNews) March 24, 2026

Following the Supreme Court’s ruling that biological sex determines gender, individuals and groups have intensified anti-trans rhetoric and increasingly isolated trans women and girls, citing the decision as justification.

This latest move by the Guides will cause significant anxiety and distress for young trans girls. The deadline signifies a reversal of their previous position. Many of us remember their 2018 statement which showed refreshing compassion towards this vulnerable group.

As the Canary has previously reported, in 2018, their guidance explicitly welcomed trans women and girls.

This makes clear how far anti-trans rhetoric has gone in the UK. The far right have deliberately portrayed trans people as a dangerous threat. Their narrative has lost any moral grounding it seeks to depend upon.

Trans girls, after all, are just that: children.

Trans children demonised: guides have lost their backbone

This decision reflects a troubling pattern of institutions cowing to billionaire-backed, far-right groups that are targeting and scapegoating trans people. Even more concerning is the impact on young trans girls—now excluded from the very spaces that welcomed them. This ostracises and isolates them from their peers.

This X account drew attention to the Guide’s statement on trans policy in 2018 under former Chief Exec Julie Bentley:

Contrast this with what the Guides said in 2018, from their now-deleted page:

“It’s been really disappointing to read and hear comments that suggest the inclusion of trans children and young people in Girlguiding somehow puts our other members at risk.”

“It is quite frankly… https://t.co/UospLiDYtz pic.twitter.com/uUdWWzEGcW

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— Adam Smith (@adamndsmith) March 24, 2026

Back in 2018, the group rightfully raised the alarm over the way in which trans girls were being demonised in far-right public discourse.

At the time, the Guides expressed disappointment with the suggestion that the inclusion of trans children “puts” others at risk of harm. In their words:

It is quite frankly disturbing that people assume that a trans child is a threat to others or that they would want to harm their Girlguiding friends.

But we do also recognise that there are legitimate concerns and queries around the practicalities of self-identifying girls sharing sleeping and bathroom facilities, and that’s why we offer bespoke guidance for any leader who is looking to run an activity, like a camp, that’s going to involve a trans child.

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“They are simply children”

One X account commenting on these past statements, said the group’s change of tack is likely a response to:

the threat of litigation by middle class middle aged bigots who have media sway is too much for charities.

It is also worth noting that their 2018 statement was based around a survey of girls and young women which showed 86% in support of trans-inclusive policies.

In an expression of solidarity, another X user said:

Well done for publishing this. It’s a sad day for the trans community.

All this hate they are getting, now that transphobes have been given ammunition against them.

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A lot can change in eight years. In 2023, the guides appointed a new Chief Executive, Felicity Oswald.  Since then, new initiatives aimed at growing membership have been introduced, under the motto “Girls Can Do Anything.”

Notwithstanding this new direction, they have failed to protect all children, and abandoned principles of equality.

Discrimination was bound to happen

The Supreme Court’s ruling worked to roll back trans rights by two decades, as we wrote last year:

By prioritising a gender normative definition of sex over legal gender recognition, the court’s decision disregards the lived experiences and identities of trans women. It raises questions about their access to single-sex spaces, participation in public life, and protection against discrimination.​

The Supreme Court’s decision reflects a troubling trend within politics and justice to favour a narrow, right-wing view of gender, ignoring the complexities of gender identity and trampling over the rights of trans people.

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This approach fails to consider the social and legal realities and plays right into the hands of the anti-trans lobby, the far-right, and bigots.

The Women’s Institute (WI) almost immediately banned trans women from their events following this shortsighted and extremely damaging ruling. Of course, this has caused significant distress for trans communities who are being pushed out of public life.

Abandoning children is a choice

However, the Charity Commission even intervened to say that no charities were under any pressure to rush to change policies after the controversial ruling, suggesting they are:

within their rights to wait for statutory guidance before abandoning their trans-inclusive policies.

The decision from Girlguiding is a result of capitulation to far-right bigots who are attempting to demonise trans people. Choosing to further isolate already marginalised children from their peers is a sickening decision.

The fact that the group in 2018 had no problem including trans children speaks volumes about the UK’s gigantic swerve towards openly transphobic politics in recent years. One of the Girlguiding mottos is:

We help girls know they can do anything

As long as they’re the right kind of girls.

Featured image via the Canary

Israel says it will invade Lebanon and enforce a ‘defensive buffer’ zone up to the Litani river. Or, in plain English, the settler-colonial state means to colonise Lebanon’s south – probably permanently.

In theory, Hezbollah breached a US-brokered ‘ceasefire’ with Israel in early March which had held up since their last war in 2024. In practice, the US gave Israel carte blanche to strike Lebanon, which it has done constantly since the deal was struck. During the intervening period, Israel attacked southern Lebanon about 15,400 times.

Now senior Israeli officials say they have destroyed many of the bridges on the Litani river, largely cutting off the south from the rest of the country.

The Guardian reported on 25 March:

During a meeting with the military chief of staff, Israel defence minister Israel Katz said Israeli forces would “control the remaining bridges and the security zone up to the Litani”, a river in Lebanon that meets the Mediterranean about 30km (20 miles) north of Israel’s border.

Adding:

Katz added all bridges over the Litani river, which he said had been used by Hezbollah to move operatives and weapons into southern Lebanon, “have been blown up and the IDF will control the remaining bridges”.

Far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich said on 23 March that the war:

needs to end with a different reality entirely, both with the Hezbollah decision but also with the change of Israel’s borders.

I say ​here definitively…in every room and in every discussion, too: the new Israeli border must be the Litani.

However:

He nevertheless represents a widely and deeply-held expansionist desire at the heart of Israel’s settler colonial polity. In Zionism’s ethno-nationalist fever-dream, Lebanon—and even lands far beyond it—are already part of Israel.

Israel aggression gathers steam

Israel attacked 92 villages in the south in 24 March:

The Israeli military attacked 92 villages and towns across Lebanon on Tuesday. A journalist on the ground recorded a new strike today while reporting from the town of Al-Burghuliyah, a coastal municipality in the Tyre district of southern Lebanon, near the Mediterranean. https://t.co/9Uun7KDNwG

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) March 25, 2026

Channel 4 News attended the funeral of another two paramedics killed by Israeli strikes on 25 March. the youngest was 16 years old:

Awful, heartbreaking, unacceptable

We’ve just been at the funeral of two young volunteer paramedics in southern Lebanon – killed in a direct Israeli strike… one was only 16 years old

They were killed whilst wearing their full kit according to witnesses – returning from the… pic.twitter.com/K5rtw0WwHO

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— Secunder Kermani (@SecKermani) March 25, 2026

The Israeli assault has displaced one in five Lebanese people. The World Health Organisation (WHO) reported that massive surges of displacement were placing pressure on hospitals:

A #WHO team visited Siblin Governmental Hospital to assess capacity amid a surge in displacement. Over 130,000 people in the area are placing growing pressure on health services. pic.twitter.com/CeuYpAKKOa

— WHO Lebanon (@WHOLebanon) March 25, 2026

Al Jazeera reported that the war had caused food prices to inflate. While Hezbollah – a Shia political party and paramilitary force in the south – called for unity.

Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said:

Negotiating with the Israeli enemy under fire amounts to imposing surrender and stripping Lebanon of its capabilities, especially since negotiations are fundamentally rejected with an enemy that occupies land and continues daily aggression.

We call for national unity against the Israeli-American enemy under one title at this stage: stopping the aggression to liberate the land and the people. All other issues can be discussed afterward.

Israel has had its sights on southern Lebanon for years. It’s desire to drive all the way through to the Litani has nothing to do with ‘defence’ or establishing ‘buffers’. This new outrage is driven by the same nakedly colonialist ambition which has driven Israel’s genocide against Palestinians, its attack on Iran, and its sundry other atrocities in the region.

Featured image via the Canary

3 min read40 min

It’s been rewarding to act on testimony from MPs, Peers, staff, academics and members of the public on how we can make the Commons more accessible, effective and open.

During the last Labour government, Modernisation Committee reports led to key changes that are now established parts of our parliamentary week, including Westminster Hall debates, topical questions and expanded educational and visitor facilities.

At the end of last year, we published our report into accessibility in the Commons. This year, we are examining the key topics in today’s parliamentary landscape.

Following our inquiry into accessibility, during which the committee heard from disabled MPs, Peers, House and Members’ staff as well as academics and senior officials, it was made clear that accessibility needs to become a major priority for the Commons, and be woven into the fabric of what it does.

Our report made a series of recommendations, including:

• Where reasonable adjustments are required for disabled MPs to contribute in the Chamber and committees, it should be made as clear as possible how they can be accessed.

• Visitors should be asked upon entry if they have a disability or access need and offered support accordingly.

• Senior leaders should establish an External Accessibility Advisory Group, allowing organisations representing disabled people the opportunity to provide feedback on accessibility challenges in Parliament.

• The Commons should lead by example and inspire other public sector bodies by ensuring as much as possible of its communication and engagement activities are delivered in accessible formats such as British Sign Language, Easy Read and audio file.

• Line managers should receive mandatory training on how to support disabled and neurodiverse individuals.

If you haven’t yet read our report, I would encourage you to do so, and we’ll continue following up on this important issue to ensure our recommendations are implemented and progress towards making the Commons more accessible continues at pace.

As a committee, we’re committed to regular engagement with the wider parliamentary community, including smaller parties, the Speaker and his deputies and all those who work here as well as the public.

So far this year, we’ve been working closely with the Liaison Committee on remote access to committee hearings to ensure the resilience of parliamentary proceedings, and we’ve discussed the recommendations from the independent review into Parliament’s Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme (ICGS).

We’re also interested in how Parliament can use time as effectively as possible, enabling MPs to scrutinise legislation and raise issues of importance to their constituents.

This is a topic that came up in our call for views at the beginning of the parliament and one we will return to this year. We’ll explore practical ways to provide MPs with more certainty about upcoming business and on-the-day changes, ensuring the Commons remains the crucible of national debate.

There is still much to do if we’re to make Parliament a more accessible and open institution which best serves the interests of our constituents. I’m committed to continuing to work with all MPs to achieve consensus in this important work. 

Hundreds of frontline social workers are regularly stepping in to personally support people in crisis. New research by the Social Workers Union (SWU) suggests that the Government’s new Crisis and Resilience Fund may not be enough to prevent this.

Crisis support

Following a survey of the SWU’s members, many felt compelled to step in and personally fund basic items for people they support – from food to energy prepayment meter top-ups.

The Crisis and Resilience Fund, which is due to begin on 1 April, is intended to provide faster emergency support for households in hardship. It comes after reports of a looming social care crisis in 2024.

However, the SWU warns that the Fund may not go far enough to prevent social workers continuing to plug gaps themselves, particularly when crises arise suddenly or where systems remain slow and bureaucratic.

Survey findings

More than 380 social workers affected by the issue took part in the research last summer, with three in four (75%) saying they were unable to claim back the costs they incurred on behalf of service users.

The overwhelming majority had to buy food (87%), while others were compelled to pay for public transport (36%), clothing (26%), cleaning supplies (24%), and top-up energy prepayment meters (19%) to keep people warm.

Though over half of social workers affected (58%) described such payments as rare, more than a quarter (27%) said they were dipping into their own pockets every month, with nearly one in ten (9%) doing so even more regularly. Most contributions were under £25, but one in twenty social workers spent more than £100.

Over a third (36%) said helping clients put their own finances at risk, highlighting how the cost-of-living crisis is now affecting not just vulnerable families, but the very workers tasked with protecting them.

Despite 86% of social workers trying to secure support via foodbanks, council-run household support funds and local charities, seven in ten times (70%) they were faced with an emergency that left no time to navigate complex or slow bureaucratic systems.

A system in crisis

John McGowan, general secretary of the SWU, has warned the findings expose a “broken support system”:

It cannot be right that social workers are left to plug the gaps in a broken support system with their own money. While the new Crisis and Resilience Fund is a welcome step, it will not solve the problem on its own if support remains slow, complex or hard to access in an emergency.

The data paints a stark picture of a safety net riddled with delays and gaps. The true test of the new Fund moving forward will be to see if it means that local and national governments act urgently to ensure help is there when it is needed.

It is a claim backed up by the stories told by social workers themselves. Asked why they had resorted to providing direct financial support to service users, one social worker told researchers:

There are often several real forms to fill out to request financial support, which are declined anyhow by managers. To save time – something we don’t often have – I’ve paid for items myself.

Another claimed that their local authority “has restricted food bank vouchers to 3 per year”. Another stated that their “service user was unable to access the internet or navigate lengthy online forms.” One went so far as to say that there just was no longer any support left to apply for.

Featured image via the Canary