AS I rustled up the ingredients for mincemeat, I couldn’t help but reflect on the fact that, without even considering my own time, my costs already far exceeded the price I might have paid in a supermarket for a couple of dozen mince pies.

Of course my wife insists, kindly and quite rightly, that mine are much nicer than shop-bought ones.

It is not universally true, however, that all home-made mince pies are necessarily nicer than what is available in the shops.

Let’s be honest, making your own mincemeat and mince pies is a bit of a luxury available only to those with the time and money.

This is the very opposite to the conclusion drawn by Baroness Jenkin of Kennington in response to the findings of a recent parliamentary report examining the growing use of food banks. She made her point rather ineptly and it sounded condescending.

She pointed out that her own breakfast of porridge was both very filling and, at only 4p, much better value that the expensive cereals consumed by people who can least afford them.

If only they knew how to cook, they would save money, be healthier and get by within their low incomes.

A mince pie is probably the exception that proves the rule, because it is generally true that ready-made meals out of packets and tins are significantly more expensive than what can be achieved by careful selection of ingredients and cooking everything from scratch.

Household economy is important, but I am not persuaded that any of this has much to do with increased reliance on food banks. I just don’t believe that people go to a food bank because they shop unwisely and have exhausted their available income on ready-made meals.

In any event, this calculation omits one very important factor: time.

Many people, including poor people, have very busy lives which may exclude the luxury of shopping around for ingredients and spending time cooking them.

So – what is the reason for this growing reliance on food banks? My prejudice, borne out by problems I am confronted with in my surgeries, is that it has rather more to do with isolation and the breakdown of extended family life.

Even though we have a relatively generous benefits system, there will always be people with needs arising from circumstances that the “system” cannot be expected to accommodate.

For example, the social security system takes time to assess new claims, in order to establish bona fides and to exclude the possibility of fraud. If claimants do not have savings to tide them over between making a claim and that claim being processed, they will need help in the meantime. Equally, there will be emergencies where, say, a breadwinner walks out on the family at short notice, or where wages are lost or stolen. In the past, in these sorts of circumstances, people would be supported by their extended families, the absence of which gives them little choice to seek help from food banks.

I believe it is a good thing civil society has stepped forward to fill this gap and that volunteers are prepared to help others in need.

I profoundly disagree with those people who regard the very existence of food banks as a mark of the state’s failure and as a badge of shame. On the contrary, food banks are something of which we should be proud.