Our Politics newsletter is now daily. Join thousands of others and get the latest Scottish politics news sent straight to your inbox. Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

FOOD banks are the soup kitchens of our time and a disgrace to the UK.

I was invited to help out at one run by the First Base charity in Dumfries.

It was a shocking experience.

I am used to quoting the shameful figures on food bank use – a 400 per cent rise in Scotland in the last year.

But last week I looked the statistics in the eye, each one a unique human being.

There was the young mother trying to feed her two children, one of whom is diabetic. She asked if she can volunteer too – she likes to be busy and hopes the skills will help her find work again.

Another lady was delighted when first offered a job at a local factory.

It involved a 15-mile bus ride and odd shifts but she didn’t mind.

But it turned out to be a zero hours contract. She was offered three hours the first week and four the second. Soon, her rent was in arrears and she was forced to sign on.

But she was denied benefits – being deemed to have “deliberately” made herself unemployed.

Sanctions by the UK government-run Department for Work and Pensions, along with delays in paying benefits, account for about three-quarters of all food bank referrals.

People are sanctioned for spurious reasons – such as failing to attend appointments they did not know had been changed.

A message about the appointment may be left on their mobile voicemail.

But if they don’t have credit, it will not be received – they still lose all their benefit for months.

They go from being too poor to afford phone credit to having no money for food.

I filled the parcels with Ian and Anne, two volunteers with First Base.

Each big white bag contains two days’ worth of nourishment.

There are loaves provided by generous local baker Kerr Little and tins of meat, beans and soup collected by church congregations across Dumfriesshire.

Many of the people collecting the food request “non-cooking packs”.

They lack the funds to pay for gas or electricity. They live on sandwiches, Rice Krispies and Instant Whip.

Mark Frankland, who set up the First Base charity, says it’s worse in winter. He told me about a young family whose new baby was released from hospital after several weeks in intensive care.

The infant required apparatus to help it breathe but they had less than £4 in the meter and needed electricity to run the baby’s life-saving equipment.

Mark was forced to phone round local churches to raise the money for power cards.

I wanted to help the people I saw that day, to take up their cases but I am a member of the Scottish Parliament, with no control of welfare or employment law. In fact, many MSPs who write to London ministers about benefit matters on behalf of their constituents are told to keep their noses out.

Sanctions, benefit cuts and delays, zero hours contracts – all are controlled by Westminster.

If Scotland’s own parliament were in charge, there is no way this sort of inhumane treatment would continue.

None of the Better Together parties want to transfer these powers over benefits and employment law to Scotland. So a No vote in the referendum is vote for food banks, sanctions, benefits cuts and the pillorying of the poor.

It is a vote for £25billion more cuts from Westminster, which the Child Poverty Action Group charity say will push another 100,000 Scots kids into poverty. Maybe that’s why Mark, and at least one of his volunteers at the First Base, were wearing Yes badges.