Labour will seek to slash the number of food banks operating in the UK if it comes to power, and its record on welfare should be judged on whether it succeeds in drastically reducing the number of people reliant on food handouts, the shadow work and pensions secretary, Rachel Reeves, said.

“I think it is a sign of failed welfare state that so many people are using them. I want to see the number of people going to food banks fall under a Labour government,” Reeves said in an interview.

There were no food banks in her constituency of Leeds West when she was elected in 2010, but now there are at least four distribution centres, she said. She said benefits delays, an increase in the use of sanctions (cutting benefits to those people deemed not to have met all the conditions tied to receiving support) and “the proliferation of low pay and insecure work” were key drivers of the rise of food poverty.

There are no government statistics on the use of food banks, but the Trussell Trust, which runs more than 430 food banks in the UK, says 913,138 people were given food parcels by its volunteers in 2013-2014 – almost a threefold increase on the previous year.

If she became secretary of state for work and pensions, Reeves said she would immediately issue guidance to Jobcentre staff making it clear that staff would not be rewarded for the numbers of sanctions they distribute.

“We have had a tenfold increase in the number of people being sanctioned. This government says that they don’t have targets for sanctions but they clearly do,” she said, as she travelled to Swindon to help campaign in a marginal constituency.



“Sanction policy has been about getting people off benefits rather than getting them into work and it has had a devastating impact on a lot of people and their families.”

Under Labour she expected the use of sanctions to fall. “There will still be sanctions. If it is clear that someone is deliberately trying to avoid work then they shouldn’t be getting benefits. But if somebody is five minutes late for an appointment because it is snowing and their bus has been cancelled … those people shouldn’t be sanctioned.”

However, Reeves said Labour did not want to be seen to be the party of the welfare state. “We are not the party of people on benefits. We don’t want to be seen, and we’re not, the party to represent those who are out of work,” she said. “Labour are a party of working people, formed for and by working people.”

Reeves is treading in difficult political territory, eager to highlight the fallout from the government’s austerity policies without appearing to be soft on the rising cost of welfare.

Shortly after being appointed, 18 months ago, Reeves said Labour would be tougher than the Conservatives on cutting the benefits bill; this week, she said she had “robust” policies to ensure that the spending would reduce.

Benefits would not be paid to EU migrants until they had been resident for two years, she said. Labour has committed to maintaining the Conservatives’ overall £26,000 benefit cap, and a Labour government would look at lowering this cap, in parts of the country outside London, where housing is cheaper. “It is right that people shouldn’t be able to get more on benefits than they do in work. You have to be able to show people that the welfare state is fair,” she said.

At the same time, she said she hoped to reverse a culture change in attitudes towards benefits claimants and to improve the way the unemployed were treated by the Department for Work and Pensions. “The role of the Jobcentre was to help. Now people are made to feel that they are trying to get something that they are not entitled to,” she said.

Constituents had told her they felt guilty until proven innocent when they went to the Jobcentre; “they are trying to catch you out, they are trying to find a reason not to pay you, rather than trying to help you back into work”. She hoped to see a shift in tone if Labour came to power. “I would never use language like scroungers, shirkers,” she said.

In a wide-ranging interview on Labour’s social security plans, Reeves reiterated that Labour would end the bedroom tax and announce a three-month pause in the rollout of universal credit if it formed the next government.

“We would stop further rollout to more Jobcentres, there will be an independent review to see whether it is deliverable, whether it is possible to build this IT system, and see whether the benefits outweigh the costs of doing so. I will only try and deliver it if this independent review says that it is deliverable,” she said.

“The principle of universal credit is the right one, making it easier for people to move into work and take more hours, but it is not clear that the system is going to work.” Implementation of the policy had gone “very badly”. “There were supposed to be one million people on universal credit by this time last year, and there are just 30,000 on it today,” she said.

Labour has not committed to match the £12bn of further cuts to the welfare bill promised by George Osborne. Reeves said Labour aimed to cut welfare spending by increasing the minimum wage to £8 an hour, and increasing youth employment.

“The big savings to be had are by tackling the root causes of the benefits bill,” she said. “If every young person who can work is working and if people are paid a wage that they can afford to live on, so they don’t have to draw down on housing benefit and tax credit, then that’s going to save a lot more money than all the talk in the world about shirkers and scroungers.”