Charities and councils will be asked whether food banks should receive Government funding at the risk of making them an entrenched feature of Scottish society.
A petition by John Beattie has called on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to provide direct funding to food banks to ensure that demand for their services can be fully met.
Michael McMahon, convener of Holyrood's Public Petitions Committee, said: "An important issue for the committee is, by introducing Government funding do food banks stop being an emergency measure and take a permanent place in our society?
"Or should we accept John Beattie's argument that as welfare cuts continue to bite, centralising the way food banks are run is the most effective way to support those in desperate need?
"As we progress this petition we will be seeking the views of the Trussell Trust, Cosla and a range of local authorities."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel