Amid suggestions that MP’s were unaware of the scale of Food Bank use in the UK, the Government has moved to clarify the situation.

“I’m fairly sure there’s been a very simple misunderstanding,” said one double-barrelled Conservative.

“It’s this term ‘food bank’, you see. Very confusing.”

A spokesman blamed a “misalignment of policy around wealth distribution within the benefit dependant demographic,” as it emerged that some politicians were under the impression that foodbanks are subsidiary branches of the UK’s major lenders, set up for the safe storage of tricky ingredients.

“It can be so hard to find suitable space to air dry your ham and age your speciality cheese these days,” one cabinet member was quoted as saying last week, as he busily cut public services and ‘sanctioned’ benefit claimants.

“I think they’re a super idea.”

The Prime Minister was unavailable for comment, but a spokesman admitted that, “in hindsight, the idea that banks might be interested in an actual thing rather than some abstract numbers on a computer screen does seem a little far-fetched.”

As the facts filtered through, MP’s appeared determined to address the food bank issue head on, with some even looking up briefly from filing their expense claims to mumble: “Erm…yeah. We’ll have a look at it.”

At this stage, alternative cheese storage arrangements are yet to be finalised.

(Image: By Diliff – Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1634181)