Jim’s blast for ‘evil attack on poorest’

Jim McMahon

MP Jim McMahon says a controversial Government bill that will plunge 42,500 Oldham children further into poverty is an “evil attack on the poorest in society”.

The Government won a Commons vote on the Welfare Reform and Work Bill, which could cause families across the UK to lose 12 per cent from the real value of their benefits over the next four years due to a freeze on child tax credits, working tax credits and jobseekers’ allowance from April.

The Children’s Society charity say almost a million children in the North West live in families facing the four-year freeze, which will affect 20,600 families in Oldham alone.

Mr McMahon, MP for Oldham West and Royton, delivered a powerful speech against the Welfare Reform and Work Bill on Tuesday.

He said: “Under these plans more will be sent into poverty as a direct result of the actions of the members opposite. Too many mothers go hungry to allow their children to eat. And by 2021 it is estimated that one million more children will be pushed into poverty.

“Research by the Children’s Society highlights that 14,400 children in my constituency alone — who all live in working households – will be affected by the four year freeze on benefits.

“As corporations like Google laugh all the way to the bank, my constituents queue up at the foodbank. Politics is about choices and the government has proven time after time that they make decisions which go against who we are as a fair country.”

Of the 20,600 Oldham families to be affected by the benefit freeze, 13,500 are working households.

But the Welfare Reform and Work Bill will scrap income-based measures of child poverty — it will be replaced by a duty to report levels of educational attainment, worklessness and addiction.

Labour MPs have accused the Conservative Party of trying to hide the level of UK child poverty

Mr McMahon accused the Government of a “see no, hear no, speak no evil” approach: “The Government does not want to speak the truth about poverty. To speak it would be hypocritical when the Government knows its actions push more and more to the bread line. No wonder the Government wants to change the way we measure poverty — it is a national scandal.

“The people of Britain deserve better than this targeted and evil attack on the poorest in society.”