AM I ALONE in finding it deeply offensive that while here in Pembrokeshire, Stephen Crabb MP, will pose for photo opportunities at PATCH charity food bank as he did on December 15, painting for Pembrokeshire voters, an image as a person who cares deeply about poverty and hardship in his constituency.

Yet only three short days later, while back in Westminter at a parliamentary debate on UK food banks use, when he found himself with the perfect opportunity to use his status as an MP and as a representative of the ever rising number of people suffering hardship in Pembrokeshire, he chose to vote against the publication of a 2013 investigation into food banks use and UK hunger, and against the motion which also called on the government to implement measures to reduce dependency on food banks in the UK.

There are over half a million people in the UK now reliant on food-banks, of whom a vast proportion are working families with children.

They are trapped on low pay, no pay and zero hour contracts, and this unprecedented explosion of food bank dependency shows no sign of rescinding. Surely, you would think, that our MP would vote for measures to reduce food bank reliance, but no, you would be wrong, he did not!

Crabb was actually a director/trustee of PATCH charity for a short while in 2012, yet when given this wonderful opportunity to make a stand for the very people he purports to care so passionately about he chooses not to.

I wonder, does Mr Crabb not realize that here in Pembrokeshire we are quite capable of tracking his voting activity in Westminster and that we can also direct our own votes accordingly.

I highly commend the incredible and unfaltering work that PATCH charity is doing in Pembrokeshire to support the ever growing number of people and families who are suffering hardship and poverty here in this county.

I only wish that it was not acceptable for politicians like Crabb to vote in Westminster one minute, for the perpetuation of brutally indiscriminate welfare reforms and economic policy, only to come back to Pembrokeshire and present a facade of compassion for the people actually suffering the consequences of these savage policies, the next.

JIM SCOTT

Goodwick