A Slice of Bread and Butter
The voice of The Bread and Butter Thing - with stories from the frontline of the cost of living crisis from one of the UK's leading food charities.
A Slice of Bread and Butter
At breaking point: The reality of cutting disability benefits
Ahead of this week's government announcements, Mark and Vic catch up with Kath, who is living with multiple chronic health conditions and the fear of financial ruin if welfare reforms cut her benefits. Relying on her wife Viv as a full-time carer and Bread and Butter for affordable healthy food, they battle the overly complicated benefits system whilst struggling to eat healthily on a tight budget. Together, they talk through the impact of welfare reforms, the tough choices between pricey, nutritious food and cheap, processed options, and the toll it all takes on Kath's mental health.
Welcome back to A Slice of Bread and Butter with Vicar Mark from the Bread and Butter Thing. We're a charity that delivers affordable food to the heart of deprived neighbourhoods, to help nourish communities and act as a catalyst for change.
Speaker 2:We provide access to a nutritious, affordable range of food, which means our members can save money on their shopping, feed their families healthily, as well as access other support too, right in the heart of their communities.
Speaker 1:And this is where we share a slice of life of somebody involved in bread and butter and hear about how they connect with us. And I met Kath from Spalding, east Midlands, a long, long way away from me, so it was about a three and a half hour car journey that Kath saved me by doing it online, which is great. So shall we have a listen?
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's do that hi, I'm kath.
Speaker 3:I go to old leek hub and also I get bags from the bread and butter thing. Old leek is in lincolnshire. It's on the outskirt of boston. I actually live in leverton, which is sort of about two and a half miles away from Old Leek.
Speaker 1:Could you tell me about your home life family?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I live with my wife. I've also got family who live in Swineshead, which is down the road, and my sister and brother as well live up here, moved up from Ilford in Essex. Eventually we've all moved up here to be up near my mum's. But also I have a lot of health conditions, so it's handy knowing that I've got family not too far away.
Speaker 1:Do you mind me asking, kath, because I can see there's a couple of crutches behind you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, no, I don't mind Ask whatever you like.
Speaker 1:Do you have mobility issues?
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, I have chronic degenerative disease of the spine and the discs. I also have fibromyalgia, lipoedema, in both legs and both arms and I have COPD and other bits and pieces. Just under two years ago, I got diagnosed with pulmonary embolisms on both lungs. About eight years, ten years ago, I was told I was going to be in a wheelchair permanently, but I'm stubborn, I try not to let that happen. Obviously, when I'm out and about, I have to have a scooter or a wheelchair, but I walk around indoors with crutches and I walk from the front door to the car so I get a little bit of exercise, but I'm in pain all the time. Yes, a mixture of things.
Speaker 1:It may be an obvious stupid question, but I guess that means you can't work.
Speaker 3:No, can't work. My wife had to give up work during COVID and she's now my full-time carer. I'm also prone to fall, so I have to be careful. You know, I also live in a bungalow.
Speaker 1:It's not warden control, but I have a pendant so that if anything happens, should you fall, you can press the button, if you can manage to do that and that's right yeah tell me about day-to-day life then?
Speaker 3:so if your wife, viv has given up work and you can't work, we live on Universal Credit and her carers allowance and my PIP and ESA. But my ESA gets deducted from the Universal Credit obviously, so you're sort of getting in one hand but it's getting taken off from the other. At the moment, as the government change you all. I get free prescriptions, which is lucky, because I have about 13 prescriptions each month, so you can imagine how expensive that would be. It's a struggle. That's what someone suggested.
Speaker 1:The bread and butter thing yeah, it's a busy hardball league. I love all the activities they put on around when bread and butter is going on yes, yeah, I mean it's given us a social life as well.
Speaker 3:We've made friends as well, which is nice and they're very welcoming there as well, and the activities. I mean it was great over Christmas when the kids came in and people do come in and do talks as well, and we play bingo sometimes and different things going on. So, yeah, it's something different to break up the week and it gives us sort of a social, a bit of a social life to break up the week and it gives us sort of a social bit, of a social life.
Speaker 1:I'm guessing they've given up work. Does she get a carer's allowance for you?
Speaker 3:yeah, so whatever we're getting, it still lose bits off. So she gets carer's allowance, but we lose it off the universe credit. So it swings and bounce. But yeah, it can be a struggle sometimes.
Speaker 1:A tricky one, but topical. What do you think is going on right now with benefits and the welfare cuts?
Speaker 3:It is a worry because the problem is the government are putting us all in the same box and we all have different conditions. And me, like I say, I have to take a day at a time I can be all right, and then in the afternoon I'm so drained from pain there's no way I can work because I don't know what's going to happen, Because if they start deducting we won't survive. I don't know what we're going to do.
Speaker 1:Do you know, after housing costs and energy bills, how much you guys are actually living on on a monthly basis?
Speaker 3:across living. I mean shopping's gone up horrendously. I remember back in the day when you know you could get a decent shop for a month for about 100 pound. Now you're looking at I mean we do monthly shop with the bread and butter thing, that was actually boosting. And also you get food and you're not necessarily go out and buy because I need fruit and veg. I have IBS, I have to have regular fruit and veg. I do think healthy stuff should be cheaper than the rubbish. Yeah, it's, it's a struggle.
Speaker 1:I was talking recently to somebody from the Food Foundation who are trying to say the same thing that you just said to government, to say the biggest problem is that the really unhealthy calories are half the price of the good calories it's so much cheaper to buy, like these really prepared chickens and fish and things like that.
Speaker 3:It's a lot cheaper to buy that than it is to buy fresh chicken, fresh meat, you know.
Speaker 1:To be able to buy a processed chicken or a processed bit of fish is more expensive than the ingredients that allegedly go into those products.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, for instance, you could this is just an example sometimes it's 10 items for £10, sometimes it's eight items for 10 pound, but that's like you know, the chicken breasts that are in tempura or breadcrumbs or pizzas, or whereas 1.7 kilos, say, of chicken that's supposed to try and spread it through the month, cost us the same price you're getting 10 processed items for the same price as 1.7 kilos of chicken.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you just can't fight that, can you? Because there must be like five, six, seven times the amount of calories in that other stuff as well oh yeah, it's not working wise.
Speaker 3:It's a lot easier to go and buy those sort of things and get more to survive on during the month than buy you fresh. The government want people to be healthier and make it more accessible. I mean two pounds for a packet of apples. I remember when you could get apples for 99p or 80p. Now you're like easy two pound for a packet of apples. It's just crazy.
Speaker 1:Going back to what you were saying earlier about the benefits, and if they do cut them, what do you think you guys are going to do?
Speaker 3:I don't know. The worry is Viv may have to go back to work. If they're talking about again people that are disabled and long-term health conditions to go back to work, I'd like to see how they can supply me with everything that I need to actually go to work. It will be a struggle and you know our worry is will we end up homeless? And I suffer with my mental health problems as well. Clinical depression I've suffered.
Speaker 1:I had a breakdown a few, well back in 2000, but it stresses me out what do you think you would like to say to rachel reeves and kia starmer about this? Because even if they don't cut it right, what they're doing to your mental health at the moment's not okay no, it's not.
Speaker 3:And they're saying that people who've got mental health need to go back to work. Well, have they actually suffered with mental health? Because some days you can't function and I think they need to sort out those that can work that won't work. Sort them out first. Don't pick on people that struggle enough. In life as it is, every day is a struggle. And then putting this on us and the worry how am I going to survive when I need electricity for my scooter to get out and about, like Viv worries if she's going to have to go back to work, how am I going to be safe? We don't know what's going to happen next. And just because the government has basically excuse my, how am I going to be safe? We don't know what's going to happen next. Just because the government has basically screwed up, they're penalising people that don't deserve to be penalised. That's my rant.
Speaker 1:OK. So Kath is clearly really, really worried about everything that's going on at the moment in the news about welfare reform and cuts of disability welfare payments etc. I think it's a really good example of why not to keep going on about welfare reforms. So the old PRPA type way of doing things, of saying message, message, message things out, is not helping in scenarios like this, because it's really hurting her.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like it just reinforces a constant sense of insecurity. So there's uncertainty about whether our future is going to be the same, whether we're going to be able to cope. How will we manage? And that's a level of stress that you don't need when you're already coping with everything that Catherine Vivick is coping with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's really interesting, isn't it? Can you imagine doing it in the working environment? Can you imagine if you started just talking to everybody about budget cuts and we may or may not cut budgets, but we might? I'm pretty sure there's employment law that stops you doing that yeah, it certainly wouldn't help with team morale, would it?
Speaker 1:no, I think it's so wrong and so unfair that this is happening. Because they're going to breathe a sigh of relief. I hope and pray when they don't get affected by it. But the unnecessary stress that has been put on a family that has already suffered so much by Viv having to give a job up as Kath's health conditions worsen. It's such a challenge.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they're not unique, are they? So Kath and Viv are real life examples of many of our members who are doing a lot. They've got a lot on their plates already, and then life makes things harder for them. They need to, you know, give these people a break.
Speaker 1:It's a kick in again, really, isn't it? It's like so many things that are happening at the moment. So, with this surprising approach of a Labour government and carrying on with things like fiscal drag, which is like not increasing the thresholds with inflation, etc. So that people can earn so much before they start getting taxed, or not increasing the threshold at which you can claim for free school meals, it's all the same thing, right? The common conversation I'm having is everybody is saying to me this feels like a Tory government, not a Labour government. I don't know what's going on.
Speaker 2:Isn't that just a sign of society in general, that everybody's at breaking point? People have been through a lot. You know we don't talk about COVID anymore, but if you go back to those days you had COVID, everybody cop. You know we don't talk about covid anymore, but if you go back to those days you had covid, everybody coped with that. Everyone was shut away and locked down and that changed everyone's lives remarkably. Then this cost of living crisis comes in and that was just another body blow and then nobody's caught up, nobody's come up for air. So the ability for people to keep their head above water is getting harder and harder and harder and it just feels like there's no light at the end of the tunnel for many people, like our members, like Kath and Viv, like they're working so hard to just manage and survive, they can't think about when they're going to thrive.
Speaker 1:I think you're bang on and I think that's the message. We're not here to judge whether it's right or wrong to actually cut benefits or tax more and all the rest of it. It's not what they're doing, it's how they're doing it right. So it's the stress, the unnecessary stress, that they're pouring on. We can talk about the morals of benefit systems and that all day long, but the way it's actually being done at the moment, where they're dangling it and basically saying you've all got to get back to work, yeah, so a what? Viv is clearly fit and well and could go back to work, but if she does, what the hell's going to happen to kath?
Speaker 2:yeah, and isn't that a cost somewhere else in the system? Of course it is, because then does kath need a carer?
Speaker 2:yeah and that's not the person that she would want. There's some tough decisions that are kind of being made and occasionally maybe not occasionally, maybe more than occasionally it feels like our members are kind of pawns within, that they're not necessarily being thought of. The decisions aren't being made with people like Kath and Viv in the front of a politician's mind, like Catherine Viv in the front of a politician's mind. It feels like an options paper rather than a people's paper.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just a lovely way of putting it, really, isn't it? Because where is the human element of this news story? For example, where is the duty of care from our government to actually say oh, we better not talk about this openly in such a generic way, because there's going to be a lot of people that may or may not be affected that are really going to stress out about this.
Speaker 2:I mean we talk about members first daily the decisions that we make in bread and butter. We try and consider our members first and foremost within that and it'd be lovely if there was a little, a little bit of that in some of the national decision making.
Speaker 1:You know, I hope everybody can actually hear your smile when you actually change your tone, then You're not wrong. You're not wrong and this isn't meant to be government kicking. This is just yellow carding to say don't do it like this, because that's a really stressful way of doing it and it's not helping anybody.
Speaker 2:No, and you could feel that in Kat's voice. Really, you could feel that she was a little bit jaded, but then she was also really anxious and that's not a combination that's good for anybody. So the other thing that I think was really interesting that she brought up was that they'd like to eat more healthily, and bread and butter helps them to do that, because when you go to mainstream retail shopping they're finding that. You know the example she used of apples, where six apples is two quid and it used to be less than a quid, and I guess that depends also on what shops are available in your area. So there may be deals at some shops but not at others, and certainly out in Boston in Old Leek, that's pretty rural community.
Speaker 1:It is. But not only is it rural, it's massively agricultural Vic. So if anywhere, ought to have cheap fresh fruit and veg.
Speaker 2:It did cross my mind as I was hearing it. We've got a lot of apples from around there.
Speaker 1:We have we really have. So we've got a lot of apples from around there. We have, we really have, because 40% of the fruit and veg that is imported into the UK comes into Spalding.
Speaker 2:Wow. So it's not only the fruit and veg they grow around there, it's. But the main point for everybody is why is the unhealthy calorie more affordable than the healthy calorie and what's the long term impact of that on people's health, on people's diet, on how big or small they are? You know there's a lot in the press about obesity. Actually, that doesn't feel like it's a choice, and our members tell us that if they could get access to more fruit and veg, they would absolutely eat it, provided it was affordable. So it's the availability and the affordability that isn't there for people means that they can't make those choices, the right choices that they would like.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you know how I like to throw your curveballs on this podcast.
Speaker 2:Go on.
Speaker 1:How on earth do we do that, Vic? How do we incentivize people to buy healthier food?
Speaker 2:Make it available. We know from our stats, we know from the survey.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's still expensive, right? So a healthy calorie is more than twice the price of a lesser quality calorie, shall we say.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the eat well plate is completely out of reach for our members.
Speaker 1:So it's not just access, it's affordability right.
Speaker 2:Totally.
Speaker 1:I know I would be screaming at this podcast if I was listening. Well, give us practical ways of doing that then.
Speaker 2:Well, isn't that what DEFRA are trying to work up with the food strategy?
Speaker 1:I'm going to say I bloody hope so, because they should.
Speaker 2:It feels like it would be very timely for the government to kind of have a position on this.
Speaker 1:No, I totally get that. But we had this with Henry Dimbleby's paper as well that was advising government on eating healthily et cetera. But every time it seems to get overlooked the affordability piece right. So you've got like 25% of the country that still can't afford it and they're saying you must eat seasonally and locally and all the rest of it. And it's just like I would do that. Our members would scream at you. I would do that if I could afford it so what's really interesting?
Speaker 2:in some areas, social prescribers are referring people into bread and butter to help them with their diets.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but should those social prescribers actually have budget to give them access to everyday retail, because we're not there every day, right?
Speaker 2:No, but that's the thing. Think about a Healthy Start voucher. That's like an eat well voucher that the social prescribers could have, and you could use your card in the supermarket and get your eight quid of fruit and veg for the week.
Speaker 1:That'd be a nice touch wouldn't it cheaper than some of the drugs that they'll be offering anyway?
Speaker 2:well, and also in terms of the health cost further down the line when people present with diabetes and blood pressure issues and all of this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:Hopefully you've prevented people getting into that place so there you go, there's vick's policy, yeah the eat well card let's socially prescribe vouchers so that people can afford the eat well guide. Done in a nutshell, you've solved it. We'll write to government and let them know. If only if only life was that easy so if you'd like to know more about the bread and butter thing and what we get up to, you can find us at team tbbt on instagram, twitter and tiktok on linkedin and online at bread and butter thingorg we're also on tiktok mark you weren't listening, were you? I did mention it.
Speaker 2:Oh, did you Rude? And if you've got any feedback or thoughts on the podcast, you can get in touch with us by email at podcast at breadandbutterthingorg, or leave us a little comment, like we got on our Apple podcast.
Speaker 1:That was nice. Yeah, a five-star review on an Apple podcast.
Speaker 2:That was pretty cool, wasn't it? Yeah, we that was pretty cool, wasn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'd like more. Lastly, we're always open to new members at all of our hubs, so if you or someone you know would benefit from our affordable food scheme, you can find your newest hub on the Become a Member pages of our website.
Speaker 2:And please do all of the things that podcasts ask you to do Like us, subscribe, leave a review, share us with your friends and chat about us on social Until next time. See you then.
