“I DON’T believe all this poverty nonsense. Go in a time machine back into when I was growing up in the 70s. That was real poverty.”

So said then-deputy chair of the Conservative Party and now Reform MP, Lee Anderson (Reform, Ashfield), in October last year.

It’s a belief commonly heard when discussing the current levels of poverty in the UK.

But as so often with comments from Mr Anderson, the reality is actually very, very different.

Last month, the Government released data the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) branded, “grim”.

Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) figures in the Households Below Average Income report showed 4.3 million children were classed as living in poverty in the year to April 2023 – an increase of 100,000 on the previous 12 months.

That means 30% of all UK children – three in 10 – live in poverty.

That’s not spin, that’s not a conclusion from ‘lefty lawyers’, ‘the mainstream media’, or the EU. It’s Government data.

And to put that in further context, in 2010/11, that figure stood at 3.6 million.

But anyway, let’s jump in that time machine as Mr Anderson recommended, and have a look at poverty in the UK compared to the 1970s…

In January, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) released it’s latest report into poverty in the UK. It’s fair to say, you get a rather different picture than that presented by the Nottinghamshire MP.

“Before 1979, levels of poverty had been broadly flat, at around 14%,” the report said. “In the 1980s, under the Conservative Government of Margaret Thatcher, there was then an unprecedented rise in poverty, even at a time of high income growth, due to the very unequal income growth over this period.”

And the report – UK Poverty 2024 – says that surge in the poverty rates has “not been reversed”.

The JRF says poverty levels are “around 50% higher than they were in the 1970s”.

Poverty levels 50% higher than the “real poverty” of the 70s mentioned by Mr Anderson.

Perhaps it’s his new-found MP salary – and £100,000 a year from GB News – that makes Mr Anderson unable to comprehend poverty in modern Britain.

Lee Anderson (Reform, Ashfield) said he ‘doesn’t believe all this poverty nonsense’. Picture: GB News

The JRF report is frightening. But it’s not alone.

The DWP figures themselves also detail how almost seven out of 10 children in poverty live in working families.

These are not ‘work-shy’ families, or ‘benefit scroungers’ – these are working people, working hard to provide for their families.

Mel Stride (Con, Central Devon), the work and pensions minister, said the Government had overseen “significant falls in absolute poverty since 2009/10”, with “1.7m fewer people in absolute low income”.

In his Commons statement, Mr Stride did not mention child poverty.

But too often it seems, working hard just isn’t enough to pay the bills.

In February last year, then-environment secretary Therese Coffey hit the headlines when she suggested families struggling with rising food costs and energy bills could simply “get a higher income”.

“Of course, we do know that one of the best ways to boost their incomes is not only to get into work if they’re not in work already, but potentially to work some more hours, to get upskilled, to get a higher income,” she told the Commons.

The new figures would suggest it’s not as easy as Ms Coffey thinks.

Alison Garnham, chief executive of the Child Poverty Action Group and vice-chair of the End Child Poverty Coalition, said: “In a general election year, nothing should be more important to our political leaders than making things better for the country’s poorest kids.

“But child poverty has reached a record high, with 4.3 million kids now facing cold homes and empty tummies.”

One measure often cited when exploring why more children are being plunged into lives of poverty is the two-child benefit cap.

Introduced in 2017, the measure meant families could only ever claim child tax credits, or universal credit, for two children.

Previously, these benefits would increase for each child.

The Resolution Foundation think tank estimates families miss out on around £3,200 each, per child, above two as a result. That’s a lot of money – more than £250 a month.

Barnardo’s chief executive, Lynn Perry, said the two-child limit was “one of the biggest drivers of child poverty”.

“The majority of families receiving universal credit are in work, and many are struggling for reasons beyond their control – such as a family break-up, the death of a partner, or someone losing a job amid the cost-of-living crisis,” she added.

And the DWP figures indicate she is right.

Research by academics from the universities of York, Oxford and the London School of Economics (LSE) concluded the two-child benefit cap was costing affected families up to £3,235 a year, with the number of affected groups rising each year.

The research concluded the cap hit “households that are less able to increase their income through employment, particularly single-parent households and families with younger children” hardest.

The cap, combined with “wider cuts to social security benefits for families with children”, meant families were being hit hard, even though the number of working parents is increasing.

The academics said there was no equivalent of the cap in other EU countries, bar Denmark, with only three imposing a cap on financial support related to the number of children in a household – and “none as low as the UK”.

It said the policy penalised “families in certain situations and create incentives for families to behave differently: to work more hours and, in the case of the two-child limit, influence fertility-making decisions”.

“However, our research found no evidence (the) policy meets its behavioural aims and, in some cases, has had the opposite effect,” the study added.

The policy is not achieving what it was supposed to – encouraging parents to return to work, work more, or as Ms Coffey advised, to “get a higher income”.

Labour leader, Sir Kier Starmer, the favourite to become prime minister after the next general election, has ruled out scrapping the cap if his party comes to power.

If we want to fewer children in poverty, something needs to change. But it looks like the cap is not going anywhere.

“We know that change is possible but we need to see a commitment from all parties to scrap the two-child limit and increase child benefits,” Ms Perry, of Barnardo’s, added.

“Anything less would be a betrayal of Britain’s children.”

A betrayal brought about by, in the case of Lee Anderson, a denial. For Mel Stride, the facts were ignored.

For a Government keen on lambasting others for not having “a plan”, there is a distinct silence on how they intend to raise our children out of poverty.

A betrayal, indeed…

• Read what Somerset politicians had to say on the issue in the latest Somerset Leveller, out this week