56% of people in poverty in the UK are in a working family and 7 in 10 children in poverty are in a family where at least one parent works.
That Rishi Sunak fails to understand the lives of those struggling to make ends meet during the cost of living crisis was on fully display this week during PMQs.
Although much of the focus was on Sunak’s political judgement following his decision to stick by Gavin Williamson, bringing him back into the cabinet, despite knowing about bullying allegations against him, before he quit in disgrace, there was another significant moment during Sunak’s appearance at the despatch box that revealed just how out of touch he is.
Labour Party MP Barry Sheerman asked Sunak what his plans were to tackle child poverty. To put the urgency of his question into context, child poverty is expected to reach a record 5 million next year in Britain, which is the fifth-largest economy in the world. A shameful statistic which is a damning indictment on the record of this government.
Sheerman told Sunak: “Does the PM remember back in February, when he was Chancellor, when I informed him that due to his incompetence in that job, children in my constituency were going to bed with no food in their tummy and no heat in their homes.
“What is he going to do as PM to make sure then in every community in our country children aren’t in that situation”.
Sunak rose to repeat the same old falsehood that his fellow Tory MPs have been pushing out for years. That the best route out of poverty was work and how if we wanted to ensure no child in Britain grows up in poverty, then the best way to achieve is that is by ensuring that children are not growing up in a ‘workless household’.
Except what Sunak, the richest MP in Parliament doesn’t seem to understand, is that most children in poverty have at least one parent who works.
Indeed, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 56% of people in poverty in the UK are in a working family and 7 in 10 children in poverty are in a family where at least one parent works.
These are key facts that Sunak and his fellow Tories who push the mantra of ‘work is the best route out of poverty’ are keen to ignore. The truth of the matter is chronic low pay, inflation, inequality and soaring energy bills along with system inequality caused by an unjust system have pushed people into destitution.
Yet the Tory party would rather portray poverty as the result of individual character flaws and poor choices. That’s because it’s a deflection strategy designed to prevent critiques of structural inequality that the Tory party have presided over, such as austerity which has devastated communities and exasperated poverty and inequality.
What Sunak’s out of touch response also reveals is why the social distance between some politicians and those on the receiving end of poverty and inequality in our country matters.
For some poverty and inequality are just abstract issues, from which they are far removed, so they come up with poor policy positions based on narrow assumptions, whereas for others it’s lived experience.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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