The Government is proclaiming that our economy is doing well, but there are still many thousands of people in the UK who are forced to rely on charities for food and clothes. This type of report has been repeated in Prayer Alert over a number of years, and still the main issues are low wages and government cuts. With winter around the corner, we are going to see an even larger rise in numbers of people needing foodbanks, as they face choices between eating and heating; last year this number was much higher in December than in other months. The latest figures show that use of foodbanks in the UK is still increasing. Benefit delays and changes remain the biggest cause of foodbank use. Also, some agencies and charities who would normally refer people in crisis to foodbanks have been unable to do so because funding reductions have caused their services to be squeezed or closed.