GORDON BROWN CALLS FOR UNIVERSAL CREDIT RETHINK – Mr Brown is seeing a level of poverty he never thought he would see in his lifetime
Gordon Brown has called on the government to carry out a “root and branch” review of Universal Credit amid growing poverty in the UK.
The former Labour prime minister told reporters he was seeing a level of poverty “I never thought I would see in my lifetime again”, and it was the government’s “duty” to tackle it for people across the country. He said: “I grew up in a mining town, which is a textile town producing linoleum, with lots of slum housing, lots of real problems. And I thought that kind of poverty had gone.
“But it’s back now and you’ve got a million children last night who were not sleeping in a bed of their own… two million families that don’t have cookers and washing machines, and they can’t actually fend for the children the way they want to do.
“Kids are not cleaning their teeth because they can’t afford the toothpaste. And the soap is not being bought because it falls off the end of the off the shop when you have to buy the food and the food is costing more.”
Mr Brown, who is involved in creating so-called “multi-banks” – similar to food banks, but also offering bedding, furniture and hygiene products – said 2024 would be “a bigger test for us” than previous years to help those in need, adding: “I think we’ve got to do far more.”