9M Britons live in poverty—Govt

Press, 28 July 1986, Page 8

9M Britons live in poverty —Govt

NZPA-Reuter London Nearly nine million people in Britain are living in poverty, according to Government figures that indicate spreading hardship since Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister seven years ago promising a new dawn. The figures released at the week-end after Parliament had risen for its summer recess, showed that in 1979, when the Conservatives took office, 5.9 million people were claiming State hand-outs — the level at which poverty is assessed. by 1981 the number was 7.6 million, and in 1983 it had reached 8.8 million out of about 56 million. Unemployment is still more than three million. An Opposition Labour politician, Frank Field, said that this year more than 10.2 million people would

rely on State help to make ends meet

The Child' Poverty Action Group said nearly one in three Britons now lived in poverty or on the edge of poverty. “These figures just confirm the increase in poverty that anybody with a pair of eyes will have noticed,” said Labour’s health spokesman, • Mr Frank Dobson. The Opposition would demand a full-scale debate if Parliament were recalled from its summer recess over the South African crisis. “Since 1979 there has been a dramatic increase in the number of families affected by poverty,” said Malcolm Wicks, the director of the Family Policy Studies Centre. “Life at this level of income is basic and sparse. Poverty is a grim fact of life for many British families.” A row blew up over the

way the details were revealed. Opposition politicians accused the Government of a cover-up. The figures were placed in the House of Commons library only minutes before it closed for the week-end. The details were not given until Parliament had risen for its summer recess. "There has been a massive cover-up job,” said Mr Field, a former chairman of the Child Poverty Action Group. He had been trying for 18 months to get hold of the figures but each time had. been fobbed off by Ministers.

“They obviously did not want the figures released for they show that poverty is the only boom Industry in Mrs Thatcher’s Government,” he said. The Department of Health and Social Security has denied any attempt to conceal the figures.