“The restraints around using a food bank are so tight, you have to be referred by someone, like a doctor or a social worker who will make an assessment that if you didn’t receive this help you and your family are in danger of starving.

“A lot of people don’t have that access because they are so vulnerable and so isolated they don’t got to the doctors, they don’t know healthcare professionals and they are literally tucking themselves away in their damp, freezing flats with their empty fridges and not getting any help at all.

“You can’t just roll up and help yourself to a couple of tins of dented tomatoes fresh off the back of your Ocado delivery, that’s not how it works.

“It’s very easy for politicians to say if there’s a free service, then people are going to use it, but that’s not how it works. That’s an easy line for people to take when they don’t want to accept that there’s a genuine problem.”