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Anger as Boris Johnson falsely claims child poverty has fallen despite huge rise under Tories

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Boris Johnson has sparked anger by falsely claiming child poverty has fallen – despite soaring numbers below the breadline and official forecasts of worse to come.

The prime minister was confronted over the Conservatives’ record, which has left 600,000 more youngsters living in relative poverty since the party came to power in 2010.

That total grew by 100,000 last year, statistics released in March showed, which means 4.2 million youngsters in the UK – or 30 per cent – are existing below the poverty line.


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The bleak figures follow steep cuts to benefits paid to families, the disabled, the low-paid and the jobless as part of George Osborne’s austerity drive.

In the Commons, Keir Starmer pointed out Mr Johnson’s own Social Mobility Commission was now forecasting a further huge rise to 5.2 million children in poverty by 2022.

“An even higher child poverty rate would be an intolerable outcome from this pandemic, so what is he going to do to prevent it?” the Labour leader demanded to know.

But the prime minister failed to set out any measures, instead apparently denying the statistics set out by his own experts.

“Absolute poverty and relative poverty have both declined under this government and there are hundreds of thousands – I think 400,000 – fewer families living in poverty now than there were in 2010,” he claimed.

Asked later, Mr Johnson’s spokesman was unable to produce any evidence to back up his claim of a fall in poverty.

Sir Keir hit back, saying: “The prime minister says that poverty has not increased. I have just read a direct quote from a government report – from a government commission – produced last week, which says that it has gone up by 600,000.

He added: “The prime minister obviously has not got the first idea what the social mobility report, from a government body, actually said.”

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Source: UK Politics - www.independent.co.uk

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