Gordon Brown decries how the cost of living crisis is hitting Britain’s children

Former prime minister Gordon Brown explains to Sophy Ridge how we are living through a child poverty emergency, with this year being one of the worst ever.

Low income families are living with “multiple deprivations” Mr Brown says, having living through austerity and now facing sanctions under Universal Credit, a cap on benefits and the limit of two children under child benefit.

Read more: https://news.sky.com/topic/poverty-6195

#poverty #deprivation #benefits

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Thank you so much for being on the program this evening you’re here to talk about what you’re describing as a child poverty epidemic what’s that all about well what’s happened is that we had the big rises in heating costs two years ago we had the big rises in food prices a

Year ago and people somehow think that well we’re through the worst actually for very poor families it’s the combination of all these things not having any more savings the emergency payments stopping Charities not having enough resources to help them food banks sometimes running out of food all these

Things have come together to make this the worst year for children in poverty and we’ve got to do something about it it’s an emergency it’s a crisis this winter and of course it’s got these huge side effects because we’ve got children who can’t afford uh or the parents can’t

Afford toothpaste they can’t afford soap can’t afford shampoo can’t afford winter coats and so you’ve got a cleanliness problem you’ve got a health problem and something has got to be done to make life better because we’re sacrificing the future of thousands of children on the altar of failing uh to take into

Account that we’ve got to do more about their poverty I feel like unlike many other former leaders who you seem to spend a lot of time going around Davos whatever you’re someone who’s very rooted in your community in Scotland what kind of things are you seeing well

I grew up in in in in the town and the county uh where where I now still am and I saw when I was growing up a lot of poverty because it was a mining and lenol town and life was changing and people obviously were finding it very

Very difficult as jobs were lost uh and there was a lot of Slum housing still but when I look at the conditions that now exist for many families they’re as bad as they were then and they’re back to where they were then and it’s because the lwi income families in this country

Are facing multiple deprivations uh the benefits have not risen in line with inflation and therefore they’re out of pocket already if they’re trying to buy say clothes as well as food and and heating children have been doubly hit because we’ve got the three two child Rule and we’ve also got also we’ve got

This family payment that’s been removed then there’s a cap on benefits and then there’s deduction so if you’ve gone on Universal Credit and you get a loan for the first five weeks and don’t get a payment then you’re permanently in debt to what has become the biggest debt

Collector in the land and that’s the department of work and pensions so half the people on benefits now have got deductions they’re paying back these loans that they should never have had to take out in in the first place and it’s the combination of all these things that are making things worse for

People you um talking about benefits there Universal Credit there’s of course a limit a two child limit on the number of children you can claim child benefit for and there is evidence to show that that’s pushing larger families into poverty would you like to see that two

Char cap what I’d like to see is a review that is successful in making sure and this is the test of this that families with children have the basic necessities of life provided for and remember three quarters of the children in poverty that I’m talking about are in

Families where someone is working this is not like the 1980s when it was mass unemployment that caused the problem this is families where someone is working but they’re not making enough they cannot make ends meet and we know that from nurses we know that from other professions they cannot make ends meat

Because the costs of bringing up a child have been so have been so much rising and of course these basic necessities uh like soap champo I’ve been going up in price as much and perhaps more than some other Commodities that people have got to buy I can see you’re trying not to be

Unhelpful to K St there but you do think the two child limit should go don’t you I think the two child child limit I never supported it but what I do think is this that you need a rooten branch review of Universal Credit and I think I

Think I I can I can explain I think why this is for him uh the right thing to do there are so many elements now of the Universal Credit that have come under review but the test is not really one ele element the test is does it meet the

Basic necessities that families in work have got to be able to provide for their children does the reform or the review make sure that these Essentials can actually be provided for as you say it’s a it’s an obscene uh situation and you’re very strong advocate of the svar

Um you’ve been talking about the kind of immediate crisis in the winter looking a little bit further forward it could be that we’re going to see the first labor prime minister since yourself um how ambitious do you think think um the next government needs to be well I I see my

Role as raising what I think are problems that have got to be dealt with I don’t I don’t think I can with the knowledge I now have uh suggest what is the only or the right solution and I think you got to leave it to K D and

Rachel Reeves to decide what the fiscal arithmetic is going to be what their priorities are for the first few few months uh how they can get legislation through the House of Commons depending on what the majority are these are all questions that you know I I’m not going

To sort of speculate about because that’s that’s for them to decide I think the important thing is that we send a message uh that uh a country that needs change will have change and I think we mustn’t forget those people who’ve been left behind in the last uh for 14 years

Now when I’m trying to persuade people to do things I I I’m acting in a nonpartisan way because I want everybody to understand whether they’re a company director or the leader of a charity that something has got to be got to be done here so the important thing I think is

Sending a message that we if we can find a way of all working together we could do something about this very big problem in UNM at the same time though you know you Chancellor for 10 years you have got this kind of wealth of experience one of

The very few people you know in the club if you like uh in the in the United Kingdom uh so I’m going to ask you I’m sure it’s I can see the direction already but but I am going to ask you about uh Labor’s uh commitment to the 28

Billion pound a year on Green Spending now we understand that that number is is going to be ditched with your experience you you you’ve been in the treasury you’ve seen the numbers and it feels to me that there’s a kind of two debates about this there’s a one side who say this isn’t

Going to work it’s going to put debt up and then there’s the other side who would say that actually you need that kind of investment in order to create jobs in order to boo grow it will pay for itself in the long run who’s right well look if Kia stammer asked me for

Advice uh I’ll be very happy to give it privately but I think you’ve got to leave some of these decisions to someone who’s working on the ground who knows the kind of problems going to face who’s assessed what his uh fiscal room for latitude with Rachel Reeves is and who’s

Made a decision on that basis so I feel that we should leave that decision to G and to to Rachel Reeves you don’t want to be a backseat driver I I I neither want to be a backseat seat driver or to be someone who pontificates uh from from

The sort of the outside as if I knew everything because I’ve been in government quite the opposite the situation has changed we are in a new uh fiscal uh uh cycle uh our economy is not growing I mean the best we can hope is

We get to 1% over the next year and that will not be enough to keep standards of living rising or alternatively to pay for our public services so these are difficult decisions that K St and Rachel Reeves have got to make if they ask my private advice I said I’ll give it but

Public publicly publicly it’s it’s for them uh to make to make the decision and uh not not today no they haven’t asked for advice about any decision if it’s being made today or not I don’t know um you obviously cared deeply about the economic situation the cost of living

Crisis the poverty epidemic as you put it that will take money to sort out and there are some people who say look we don’t have money look look at the scale of the debt this is what we need to do first rather than spending as labor

Would do yeah but look when when you think of uh the easing of poverty one of the ways that we can ease poverty is helping deal with some of the problems of low pay now some of these problems of low pay are not about public spending

They may be about the living wage they may be about people who are in low PID jobs getting the training and skills to get into better pay jobs it may be something to do with how we provide child care and what could be done about that there’s a number of ways that we

Can deal with the problem of poverty that don’t actually uh commit you to massive amounts of Public Public public expenditure and I think we should be thinking about how we can relate the creation of good jobs to the relief of poverty and I think uh there are probably a million people in this

Country who could move from a low paid job into a better PID job who would not then have to claim Universal Credit who would be paying taxes instead of uh not not not doing so and actually the country would save money rather than lose money by getting people into better

Jobs and of course this is a global uh problem as well not just a domestic one too um I had to say I really enjoyed your kind of gag to my colleague K Burley when you said you’re too old to be PM in the UK but too young to be US

President yeah it doesn’t go down well in America yeah I bet I can imagine we enjoy it perhaps less so across the p um are you concerned at all about the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency yeah I have written about this and you know I would normally say that any

British leader should keep out of American politics and they would say any American leader should keep out of British politics but I think we’ve got to sound some worry about what’s likely to happen if Donald Trump were elected he’s promised a 10% tariff on Goods so you’ve immediately got a trade War he

Wants to leave the World Bank and the IMF and all the international institutions that are responsible for trying to get International cooperation we don’t know what he’s going to do on Ukraine so there is a huge doubt as to whether you know a sovereign state Ukraine can actually be protected under

A trump Administration so I think we’ve got to tell the Americans that we in Europe are really worried about what could be the consequence of this Trump Administration and if these things were to happen to trade Wars protectionism to have Ukraine uh let down uh and also not

To know what he’s going to do about China and the Middle East uh the these are huge issues not just for America but for the whole of the world and particularly issues for for Britain and Europe as well so I think on this uh instance we’ve got to speak out and say

Look we are worried about what the policies that he’s proposing are you know he wasn’t prepared to be president in 2016 probably never expected to get the job uh now he has got a whole series of institutes working on detailed policies some of them really do uh fright frighten most people around the

World MH so it’ be more robust if you like and not be afraid to say what we I I think that you know while it’s it’s normal not to comment on other countries elections because it’s a democratic process I think when you receive uh information about statements he’s making

About what he’s going to do in his relations to Britain or NATO or Ukraine or Europe or the Middle East uh and trade Wars that would actually cause a lot of damage to jobs in Britain we we we’ve got to be prepared to speak out

And say we are we are worried and we are concerned uh just finally um Rich unit got into some trouble this week after make a point about transgenderism at Prime min’s questions when the mother of the murdered transgender teenager browni was in Parliament he hasn’t apologized

Should he well when I made mistakes I did apologize and every prime minister makes mistakes I I don’t think you can say that every prime minister will fail to make some mistakes but I think you should apologize if you get if you get if you get things wrong and I mean it is

A very sad and really tragic tragic case of of a family in in grief and I I I know he’s said he’s compassionate about the family but perhaps he should do what I had to do in one or two occasions and apologize and I do accept that you you

You if you make mistakes you’ve got to correct them quickly thank you very much Gordon Brown