In her weekly column before Christmas (December 19, 2013) Devizes Constituency MP, Claire Perry, told us she had concerns about food banks and was going “to be quietly working” in the Devizes bank in the Christmas week to check up on them.

She wrote that she could not understand why their use was growing so fast “at a time when the economy is recovering sharply...”.

Her implication was that (as her colleague the Conservative minister Lord Freud had said) people were using food banks because they were there and not because they could no longer afford to buy food.

Last week the government commissioned a report on food banks – suppressed for many months and tweaked by three government departments – which confirmed that food banks are used by people as a last resort.

After the report’s publication, its lead researcher made it clear that in the months since the report was written, welfare reforms have forced many more to use food banks.

Since Mrs Perry wrote that column we have not (as far as I can tell) heard what her research at the food bank over Christmas revealed.

Could we please hear from her again on this topic to let us know what she discovered?

Tony Millett, Marlborough.