ACTIVIST and food writer Jack Monroe issued a stark warning today that the cost of living crisis will be “fatal” for children in poverty.
The campaigner, who specialises in low-cost cooking, warned MPs that the impact of the crisis on “millions of children living in poverty in Britain today” is “going to be, in some cases, fatal,” a term that she didn’t “use lightly.”
She told the work and pensions committee that the home situation of children living in poverty was “already untenable” and had been worsening over the last decade.
The 33-year-old said you could only get around two-thirds as much for a £20 weekly food shop now as a few years ago.
“And that’s not people deciding not to go to the theatre or not have legs of lamb or bottles of Champagne, that’s people deciding ‘we won’t eat on Tuesday or Thursday this week’ or ‘we’ll turn the heating off’ or ‘we’ll skip meals’.”
Ms Monroe told MPs that while some retailers might be able to provide cheaper food deals on some ranges the major problem is “that everything else has got more expensive.”
She said: “Rent has gone up, gas has gone up, electricity has gone up, council tax has gone up, the general cost of living has gone up to a point where people have less to spend on food in their household expenditure.
“People are just eating less or skipping meals or having less nutritious food, bulking out on that 45p white rice and 29p pasta in lieu of being able to have fresh fruit and vegetables and nutritionally balanced meals.
“It’s not that food has got cheaper because it certainly hasn’t. It’s that everything else has got more expensive so there’s less in the household budget for food.”
Her comments came following a new report by the Resolution Foundation that warned the conflict in Ukraine would push up living costs even further as the prices of fuel and other goods surge.
The report forecasts the income of a typical household will plummet by about £1,000 this year – the biggest real-terms fall since the mid-1970s.
“The crisis in Ukraine has increased both the scale of price rises but also the degree of uncertainty about their levels and duration,” the foundation’s report said.
The think tank’s Mike Brewer said the cost of living crisis was “extraordinary given we are not in a recession” but they expected inflation to peak in April at 8.3 per cent – much higher than the Bank of England’s February forecast of 7.25 per cent.
Aveek Bhattacharya, from the Social Market Foundation, said the government needs to get “cash into the hands of those who need it.”
Labour shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said the Tories should face the reality of the cost of living crisis and “back a one-off windfall tax on oil and gas producers.”
The SNP’s fair work and employment spokesman Chris Stephens MP said the comments from Ms Monroe about this “Tory-made cost of living crisis” should be “printed off and pinned to the Chancellor’s wall as a reminder of the impact his callous cuts have on households.”
Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced measures which include a £150 council tax discount for people living in bands A to D properties and a repayable £200 “rebate” off energy bills in October.
It comes as employees, employers and the self-employed will begin to pay 1.25p more in the pound for National Insurance from April.
