Child poverty is a serious subject – Keir Starmer is right to expose Boris Johnson’s ‘dodgy’ statistics

The party leaders clashed on the government’s record on inequality yesterday, writes John Rentoul. Here are the facts

Related video: Keir Starmer accuses Boris Johnson of giving ‘dodgy answers’ on child poverty claim (Getty)

Keir Starmer asked about child poverty at Prime Minister’s Questions a week ago, quoting the Social Mobility Commission, whose report had been published that morning. It said there are now 600,000 more children in relative poverty than in 2012, and that the total number is forecast to rise to 5.2m in 2022.

These are selective figures. The rise in the number of children in poverty since the last year of the Labour government is actually half as much, 300,000; and the forecast of a further rise of 1m to 5.2m was made three years ago.

It is reasonable to assume that the outlook for child poverty is bad, but quoting a three-year-old forecast made under a different government long before the coronavirus struck is no way to do it.