Keir Starmer accuses Boris Johnson of giving 'dodgy answers' on child poverty claim

Boris Johnson has been “found out” giving dodgy figures to the House of Commons , after the children’s commissioner for England branded his claims on child poverty false, Keir Starmer has told MPs.

But rather than back away from the claim at prime minister’s questions in the Commons, Mr Johnson for a second week running deployed a questionable statistic, telling MPs there were “500,000 children falling below thresholds of low income and material deprivation” when the official figure for 2018/19 was 1.5 million.

The Labour leader took aim at Mr Johnson at PMQs a week after the PM told the Commons that there are 400,000 fewer families in poverty now than in 2010.

Aides were unable to point to a source for the claim at the time, and a factcheck carried out for children’s commission Anne Longfield found it was “not borne out by the government’s own published figures”.

In last week’s clash, Starmer confronted the PM with statistics showing that an additional 600,000 children now live in relative poverty compared with 2012, and that the total number of children in poverty is projected to rise to 5.2 million by 2022 on current trends.

The children’s commissioner’s factcheck found that Sir Keir’s claims were “correct descriptions” of findings in a thinktank, with the first based on the government’s own figures and the second on “the best available estimate”. The impact of Covid-19 meant the forecast was now likely to be optimistic.

By contrast, Mr Johnson’s claim about falling numbers of children in poverty was “not borne out by the government’s own figures” and were not properly substantiated by other data, the commissioner’s office found.

In testy exchanges in the House of Commons, Starmer demanded a retraction from the prime minister.

“He’s been found out,” Starmer told MPs. “He either dodges the question or he gives dodgy answers.

“Mr Speaker, no more witnesses, I rest my case. Will the prime minister do the decent thing and correct the record in relation to child poverty.”

But Mr Johnson refused to back down, responding: “I’m happy to point out to my learned friend that actually there are 100,000 fewer children in absolute poverty, 500,000 children falling below thresholds of low income and material deprivation.

“This government is massively increasing Universal Credit – £7 billion more to help the poorest and neediest families in our country. We’re getting on with it, we’re taking the tough decisions .”

Mr Johnson gave no timeframe for his claim that there were “100,000 fewer children in absolute poverty”. Official DWP figures show that 17 per cent of children were in absolute poverty in the UK before housing costs in 2019/18, down from 18 per cent the previous year but higher than the 16 per cent recorded the year before. After housing costs the figure remained static at 26 per cent over the past three years. On both measures, the DWP paper said absolute poverty was at roughly the same level seen in 2009/10.

A senior Downing Street source was unable to provide any source for Mr Johnson’s claims from either last week or today, telling reporters: “The prime minister has set out today in the Commons in his answer to the leader of the opposition what the figures are.”

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