I READ your report (1/12/2017) on the increasing need for people of this country to go to foodbanks.

I commend all those volunteers who give up time to administer these schemes, especially at Christmas when they have their own families to consider.

But what a sad state of affairs that this country, one of the richest in the world, has such high levels of poverty and particularly child poverty.

It is customary at Christmas time to revisit Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, and the world has changed almost beyond recognition since the time Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol, but I venture to suggest that he might have had something to say about the growing need for foodbanks and the life-long effects this can have on children brought up in such levels of poverty.

Gordon Cann

Craigmoor Avenue, Bournemouth