Food banks seem to be a phenomenon particular to the last four years of Britain’s Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition Government.

But Bradford Metropolitan Food Bank (BMFB), which has been going for ten years, first started giving out bags of foodstuffs in May 2004, when the Labour Party was in power and Tony Blair was Prime Minister.

However, in the years up to the 2010 General Election, the BMFB gave out 3,400 bags of food where in the past four years, including an estimate for the rest of this year, the figure is 22,650.

Former Bradford headteacher and Labour councillor Keith Thomson, the treasurer of Bradford Metropolitan Food Bank, said: “In 2013 we gave out food bags to the value of £100,000, with 80 per cent of that being the value of food donated in kind, such as beans and pasta; and we spent a pound or two just short of £20,000 in buying in food from local supermarkets. In 2010/11 we spent less than £500 on food purchases.

“Since May, 2013 – that is for the last 12 months – we have been giving out more than 800 bags every month, so the total for 2014 is likely to be around 10,000 bags.”

Lashman Singh, the founder of what is now a registered charity, also set up the Curry Project 22 years ago to offer hot nourishing meals to the homeless. Along the way he realised that people with disabilities or the elderly were unable to get our and about as readily as the able-bodied, so he set up Bradford Metropolitan Food Bank to reach a wider clientele of need.

He sounds appalled when asked to explain the difference in demand between 2004 and now.

“It’s economics. Things are more expensive and people’s benefits get suspended for very minor offences, whereas in the past that didn’t happen,” he said.

The official term for this is sanctioning, which was outlined in these columns last month. The very morning last week that Keith Thomson spoke to the T&A, he gave out 12 bags of food from his Bradford home to agency workers (Bradford Metropolitan Food Bank only supplies food to professional agencies).

He said there was a case at a primary school involving a family of two adults and five children. The adults were in work and in receipt of Working Tax Credit, but the Department of Work and Pensions had summarily sanctioned all payments pending the receipt of required paperwork, which would take up to three weeks.

“There have always been people who, for one reason or another, can’t cope, people who needed help on a short-term basis. But what’s happening now is ludicrous,” Mr Thomson said.

In the beginning, ten years ago a bag of food consisted of basics such as cereal, milk, sugar, tea, baked beans and a tin of meat. The contents have changed somewhat since then. Now an average bag loaded up the Food Bank’s HQ consists of: a packet of cereal; two litres of Long Life milk; half a kilo of sugar; 40 tea bags; pasta; pasta sauce; two packets of noodles; a packet of rice; a tin of corned beef, ham or other meat; baked beans; a tin of spaghetti; a tin of chick peas or kidney beans; a jar of peanut butter or jam; a packet of biscuits; crisps; sometimes milk chocolate or any other occasional items that are donated.

Fresh food is not bagged up. Any that is received is put into boxes and distributed to large families.

Keith Thomson also receives donations from companies and individuals. Last year, he says he gave out more than 200 receipts. Last year he also went to the funeral of a pensioner who for a couple of years gave £10 every week to the Kirkgate Centre to pass on to the BMFB.

The Food Bank started off in 2004 with £1,500 from Tesco. Since then it has received £5,000 over three years from Turley’s, a firm in Leeds; £5,000 over three years from a Christian group called 2/28 and £1,000 from Bradford’s housing agency incommunities.

With the Food Bank’s base at St Mary’s Church off Leeds Road due to be converted into homes and workshops for the homeless, alternative premises for storing and packing food bags, either free or for a peppercorn rent, are going to be needed in future.

Donations of food or money can be made via Bradford Metropolitan Food Bank’s website bradfordfoodbank.com, or by contacting Keith Thomson on (01274) 542672.