SIR – John Hall (Letters, October 12) asks where is the support these days for people without food. He doesn’t have to look far as it is the general Bradford community – the schools, the churches, the mosques, the temples, work places, offices and scores of individuals – who supply the volunteer-led, and non-sectarian Bradford Metropolitan Food Bank with food and money so those in need can be supported.

This foodbank never sees those who open the food bags, as we only deal with the professionals who have a duty of care for the vulnerable and those struggling. They can confirm the need. So we give the food bags to social workers, housing officers, mental health teams, doctors’ surgeries, domestic violence hostels, community and family centres, vicars, probation officers, the CAB, and so on, and they all report an increase in demand.

You can decide yourself why this might be, but at the same time there has been an extension of the council tax, a reduction in housing benefit for spare rooms, changes in the job seeker’s allowance, fewer crisis loans, new disability standards, an increase in the sanctioning of benefit claimants, annual pay increases below the cost of living, a rise in energy, food and transport prices, and a campaign to make benefits a dirty word.

Sometimes coincidences happen, but this isn’t one of them.

Keith Thomson, Heights Lane, Bradford