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Esther McVey has launched a secret £200,000 study to find out if her own government's cruel austerity policies are harming poor people.

The Tory welfare chief and her department are trying to find out if its policies are behind the surge in people relying on food banks.

The £217,000 research will seek to answer what campaigners have long argued after the number of emergency food parcels soared from 61,000 in 2010/11 to 1.3million last year.

Ms McVey - formerly MP for Wirral West - has previously tried to blame the explosion on Labour, who she said "refused" to let Jobcentres signpost people to food banks before 2010.

And she infamously once said it was 'right' that more people were relying on food banks.

Now the Mirror reports that a leaked a research plan shows the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will look at whether its own policies are to blame for the rise.

The four-page document, published in full by the Guardian, says officials will seek "to identify any areas of DWP policy or operational practice that may have contributed to a rise in demand for food bank services".

They will examine specifically if moving onto the new benefit Universal Credit has forced people to seek help, the document says.

And they will examine if "benefit delays" - which charities say are the most common reason for using a food bank - are to blame, as well as "benefit rates" which have been frozen for several years.

Potentially the study will recommend "small changes in policy design" that could help, the document adds.

Funding has now "been approved" for the study, which will include a review of previous studies, two surveys of 600 and 500 food bank managers, and 30 in-depth interviews with food bank users.

It will also look at whether food banks' own supply chains have fuelled use and look at other factors behind the surge such as the rising cost of living.

Benefits boss Ms McVey admitted last month she is "working on" changes that are "still needed" to six-in-one welfare system Universal Credit - five years and a million claimants after it launched.

(Image: Anthony Devlin/PA Wire)

They include more support for the self-employed and possible changes to the "taper rate" to let people keep more of the money they earn.

Birkenhead MP Frank Field , who chairs of the Commons Work and Pensions committee, told the Guardian: “This is a problem of the government’s own making.

"If this research gives the government a chance to get off this self-imposed hook, then it’s a good thing. But God help people in the meantime."